For What it's Worth
by Scouse
Summary: She raised her chin, almost daring him to comment, to defend Kate as well like Jack had, but Sawyer only remained silent. SawyerAnaLucia, implied JackKate. [Complete]
1. Chapter 1

Title: For What it's Worth   
Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Sawyer/Ana-Lucia, implied Jack/Kate

Characters: Sawyer, Ana-Lucia, Kate, Jack.

Summary: She raised her chin, almost daring him to comment, to defend Kate as well like Jack had, but Sawyer only remained silent.

Warnings: A little swearing...nothing much.

Status of fic: Completed

Author's Note: I'm obsessed with Sana...so sue me! I like Ana-Lucia's character and I love the idea of her together with Sawyer. Great! But I am going to attempt to dabble with Skate and Jana at some point...just to make sure. Oh, and I've not really seen Kate angry at anyone before (perhaps that has something to do with the fact that I'm from the UK and have only seen part of season 1) but I am assuming that she and Ana-Lucia aren't going to see eye to eye. I mean, they both have such strong characters a war is definitely imminent!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Lost related and also I have no claims to Watership Down, it's characters or quotes. It just makes me happy to put them in!

**  
-o0o-**

For What it's Worth. 

He knew there was an argument going on. After years and years of bar brawls and street fights, Sawyer could quite literally smell a disagreement between two people from miles away.

He watched intently from where he sat propped against his bags and belongings in the shelter that the other survivors had clubbed together to build for him, though it was likely that they had only done so to keep him out of the caves and out of their hair. That notion had made him smirk.

The two women glared at each other, squaring off. Shoulders and jaws set, fists clenched. Harsh words were spat forth from gritted teeth, though Sawyer couldn't quite make out what they were saying or what exactly they were arguing about.

It was strange, he thought, to see them go at it, head-to-head, whereas previously they had only ever sent scathing glares or dark looks the other's way. It had finally come to a head, like the black, thunderous clouds currently culminating above the jungle canopies waiting split the air open with furious lightening as it poured torrential rain down upon them all.

They had always been opposing, Kate and Ana-Lucia. From the minute that they had met. They had never seen eye-to-eye causing tension to hang like a thick smog over the caves, but not even Sawyer had expected them to do anything about it, and from the looks of things, they were pretty close to throwing punches.

He winced at that, remembering being on the receiving end of one too many of Ana's thumps. He wasn't sure if Kate was actually up to taking one of those right hooks…and yet Kate herself had given him a hell of a head-but that had left him seeing double for the remainder of the night.

It was a close call, but if he had to put money on it, he'd back Ana-Lucia purely on her strength. Sure, Kate could fight dirty, but that wouldn't count for a _thing_ if Ana flattened her first.

The strongest female personalities on the island. The most stubborn and opinionated out of possibly all of the survivors. Looked like they were heading for World War 3 and Sawyer dug his elbow into the bags that he was propped up against, getting comfortable for the impending fight. He had a front row seat after all, even if the rain pattered and lashed around him, his only protection the thin tarp above his head.

Then Jack entered the fray, making his way from the cave mouth out into the unforgiving weather to defend the slight brunette as he took his place by her side. Ana-Lucia scowled, grinding her teeth together harder than before and she swore at them both. Sawyer could tell it was profane, something that probably would have made him proud, by the way that Kate glared at her raven haired opponent with obvious distaste. He could tell by the way Ana's lips drew back and revealed snarling teeth and by the way that Jack stepped forcefully between the warring women, no doubt telling Ana-Lucia that her language was uncalled for, that she needed to calm down.

The young Latino woman glared at them both for a moment longer and Sawyer was almost positive that he could see the taint of hurt in her dark brown eyes as they glanced up at Jack. Hurt that he had sided with Kate over her. Hurt that he had not even listened to her side of events. And then it was replaced by fury as she spun away from her opponents, inky-black hair whirling out behind her through the rain as she marched in Sawyer's direction.

She was obviously intent on stalking into the jungle, seeking refuge and solitude but as she neared his shelter, Sawyer called out to her. He didn't know why exactly, perhaps he was simply a bastard set to make everyone miserable. Perhaps he was once again seeking his own punishment by being on the receiving end of yet another of Ana-Lucia's cuffs. And perhaps it was simple because she intrigued him. Whichever it was it didn't matter much to him. He'd long since given up analysing why he was the way he was, why he did the things he did.

"Hey there, Girl-fight!" he called, raising his chin and grinning at his new nickname for her. He was, however, unsurprised when his greeting was met with hostility.

"What!" she snapped, pausing her thrashing movements through the jungle undergrowth to turn towards him with arms folded in impatience.

"You been ragging on my girl Kate again?" he queried and Ana-Lucia replied with a humourless snort.

"_Your girl Kate_ was asking for it!" she retorted testily, sending a brief, livid glare back over her shoulder at where Kate and Jack stood in the dry mouth of the cave, heads bent together as they conversed quietly. "She's got a black-eye with her name on it!"

She raised her chin, almost daring him to comment, to defend Kate as well like Jack had, but Sawyer only remained silent. She was blunt. That was the way she was and her comment was telling him to take her as she was or leave her. It was starkly obvious from their argument moments previously, that Kate had not taken so kindly to such a brazen attitude. But Ana-Lucia was honest about her feelings to the point of indifference and didn't care what he or anyone else thought about her dislike of the other woman. He found that somewhat refreshing.

They considered each other for long moments before Sawyer broke the stillness once more and with another smirk.

"Why don't you step over here, _Rocky_. Give the invalid a bit of your attention, huh? I'm sure the _good doctor _won't miss it for a couple of minutes." he asked beckoning to her with the hand of his uninjured arm and though her features remained furious, Ana surprisingly did as he asked, stopping just outside his shelter where his booted feet protruded through the plastic sheeting into the rain and mud.

"So," she demanded, peering into his makeshift tent and resting her weight onto one leg as she scanned around almost curiously. "What can I do for you, _Invalid_?"

"You gonna stand out there in the rain while you talk to me?" he enquired, amusement clear on his features as he feigned upset and she grunted at him in response, an angry sound that made his grin wider, and his dimples more prominent.

Again, startlingly, she did as he asked, ducking into his new home and standing with her head bent at a strange angle because of the low roof as she waited for him to continue speaking.

"Don't that hurt your neck, standing like that?" he beamed up at her and she loosed a frustrated growl. She didn't respond, however, simply kicked out at him, catching him in the side of his leg and making him wince and chuckle at the same time.

"Move over then, _Fat-ass_, before I change my mind." she demanded impatiently, her voice laced with ire and he did so, shifting enough so that she could sit herself down beside him, resting her elbows upon drawn up knees.

"What do you want then?" Ana queried at length as they stared out into the slashing rain in tandem, their view of the caves and a certain conspiring doctor and fugitive obscured by the weather's increased intensity.

Sawyer shrugged though it made the pain in his arm flare up once more.

"Nothin' much." he responded, gaze still intent on the small triangle of scenery that they could glimpse from between the two plastic tarps that constituted his 'front door'. "Just wanted to let you know. For what it's worth, Sugar, I think Dudley Do-Right can't see no wood for the trees." Sawyer stated. Her dark brown gaze flickered to his face for the briefest of seconds, meeting his eyes first before following the line of his brow, smoothing over his cheek and jaw before finally resting upon his mouth. "The doctor…" he illuminated, waving the hand of his good arm in the direction of the caves and Jack. "Jack don't know what he missin' out on with you."

"I dunno what you're talking about." she snapped, turning away from him swiftly to hide the growing tint of embarrassment upon the apple of her cheeks, but Sawyer shrugged and lay back, staring up at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head for a pillow.

"Don't try to kid a kidder, Darlin'." he replied with a bitter chuckle. "I know all about it. Known all about it since _she_ chose Saint Jackass over me."

Ana-Lucia remained silent, her eyes unmoving from where they focused upon the muddy ground outside Sawyer's tent. She knew exactly who he was talking about. She had seen the way that he looked at her. Kate.

Suddenly and out of the blue it seemed, a pair of dirt coated boots stopped in front of her line of vision and Ana glanced up to meet the stare of the very woman that she had crossed swords with earlier. The very woman that she and Sawyer had, not so directly, been discussing.

"What do you want?" Ana spat and Kate glared down her nose at her before turning her attention onto the recumbent form of Sawyer, ignoring his companion entirely.

"Get up, Sawyer. Jack wants to check over your wound." she announced and Sawyer laughed out loud, propping himself onto his elbows to fix his blue-eyed watch onto the petite brunette.

"_'At this, all four rabbits felt the trance of utter panic. They grew rigid. Then Bigwig, his eyes set in a fixed, glazed stare, began to jerk his way up the ditch towards the opening. You have to go, he muttered, so thickly that Hazel could hardly catch the words. You have to go when he calls you'_." Sawyer muttered, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and Ana chuckled, drawing curious stares from both him and the impatient woman stood at their feet.

"Watership Down." she explained. "I actually enjoyed studying that book in school. Although, I don't see how you can liken Jack to the Black Rabbit of Inlé. He's more like the Threarah."

"Chief Rabbit." Sawyer chuckled again, shaking his head in mild disbelief.

"Can we skip the little English lesson?" Kate demanded with a huff and Sawyer pushed himself to his feet with effort.

"Stick around, Chica." he told Ana when she began to stand also, getting ready to leave his shelter. "Don't want you catchin' your death out there in that rain. Make yourself at home."

She did, stretching her legs out before her and watched as Kate strode away into the rain followed by a somewhat reluctant Sawyer.

"Hey, Bigwig!" she called out suddenly, smirking when his head twisted in her direction, eyes narrowed slightly. "Just wanted to let you know, for what it's worth, Bonnie don't know what she's missin' out on with you!" she echoed his words and watched as his face lit up with recognition of her nickname for Kate.

"Bonnie. Bonnie and Clyde!" He loosed a bleat of hilarity to the thunderous sky, tossing his head back. "You're getting' good with them nicknames, Darlin'. You'll be giving me a run for my money soon."

"Sure will." she retorted, leaning back against his bags and belongings, not even attempting to swallow the satisfied smirk that played across her lips at Kate's disgruntled face, furious that she was being left out of the joke.

-o0o- 

Let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

Finally I have penned chapter 2...or at least part of it.

Just some deep Ana thoughts in this one. It's a lot shorter than the first chapter but like I said it is only half and I really wanted to get this bit out...to see what people reckon.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lost or it's characters.

**Chapter 2**

She allowed a deep, weary sigh to escape her lips as she leant back heavily against Sawyer's many suitcases, for once giving herself a rare luxury of being comfortable. Comfortable and still.

There hadn't been a single day within the past month that she had been able to simply sit and reflect. She suspected that she'd probably not even come to terms with what had befallen them all on the doomed flight 815. She'd just not had the time, instead she had focused all of her efforts, both day and night, onto helping the other survivor's overcome their traumas.

They had needed a leader. They had needed desperately for someone to take charge of them and steer them towards survival instead of leaving them there, standing on the beach screaming and crying and waiting to die. And she had been that leader. She had been the one who had told them what to do and how to do it. She had stepped up to the task and she had done what she'd had to do. No way in hell had she wanted to die there on that beach, on this island. It hadn't taken a miracle for her to figure out that she stood a better chance of actually remaining alive if there was a group of them and she hadn't been about to let a collection of traumatised plane-crash survivors die and be her downfall. She didn't plan on dying for a long time…she had too much to lose.

But suddenly, she found herself replaced. Her efforts to lead and keep them out of danger no longer required. She wasn't a leader anymore and that was possibly why she allowed herself to remain in Sawyer's shelter longer than perhaps she should, longer than she definitely would have back in the real world. She wasn't the one who they looked to for help and direction anymore…Jack had assumed that role now. Had become their leader, the Head Honcho, the 'Chief Rabbit' as she and Sawyer had likened him to moments previously. And yet, she didn't doubt that Doctor Sheppard was better equipped both mentally and physically for the task…or that he was better liked.

Libby had taken to the other survivors like a duck to water, offering her help and opinion to Jack and Kate whenever she could and making firm friends with the island's young mother, Claire, and with Jin's wife, Sun. Ana rarely saw hide or hair of the blonde woman anymore.

It was good that Libby and the rest of her group had adapted so well to life with the larger survivor society. It kept her out of Ana's hair. Stopped her from continually trying to psychoanalyse her, to second guess her, to figure her out. Sure, Libby had been a therapist back in the 'real world' but if she had asked Ana one more time "how did she feel" about something, Ana might actually have considered garrotting her!

Libby had more in common with the other surviving women anyway. Ana had never really been one for girl-talk but Claire, Sun and the others seemed to thrive upon it and she could never begrudge Libby any happiness that she found in the company of the other female survivors. They needed all the happiness that they could muster.

She shifted again, drawing a knee up and resting an elbow upon it so that she could in turn support her head with that hand.

It didn't bother her much. It didn't irk her as perhaps it would someone else had they been in her position. She'd never had many firm female friends and if she had, she'd never been able to keep them for long. It had a lot to do with the fact that she, herself, had a hot temper and a sharp tongue and she had never been afraid to use either when she had deemed it necessary. She wasn't about to change for anyone and she had alienated many people that way over the years, most recently with Kate.

The main problem however stemmed from the ease with which she befriended men. Sure, it was all fine to begin with, the women and wives announcing that it was perfectly normal for work colleagues such as Ana-Lucia and their husbands or partners to socialise. Everyone was entitled to their recreation and it was the twenty first century after all! A man and a woman could be just friends…But they never believed their own words for very long and their and their husband's friendship with Ana hadn't lasted much longer after that.

Ana-Lucia rested her head back onto one of the suitcases, gazing up at the blue plastic sheet that covered the shelter and prevented the heavy jungle precipitation from soaking her to the skin. Tree branches shifted overhead in the light breeze, making patterns swirl and sway a darker blue across the roof, accompanied by the drumming raindrops.

Life, it seemed, was content to never run smoothly for her, whether she was back in civilization or stranded upon a god-forsaken island that might actually be the death of her.

-Flashback-

_She clenched her jaw, dark brown eyes glaring at the aging man sat comfortable behind his desk before her. His fingers laced together languidly as his own stare clashed with hers above them. Obviously he didn't think that she deserved the apology that she had come for._

"You're firing me!" she stated, breaking the silence finally, words barbed with fury as she watched his pale, work worn face.

"No, Ana." he countered, speaking to her as if she were a child who simply didn't understand her math homework. "You are being dismissed. The board think-"

"Screw the board!" she interrupted with a hiss and a jerk of her chin. "Tell me the god damn truth for once in your life, Carlton!"

Her demand was met by a tight-lipped glance of impatience. She could tell that she was beginning to irritate him, that she was pushing her luck further than it was willing to go.

Finally, Carlton smoothed the finger and thumb of one hand across his narrow, greying moustache and continued with a reluctant sigh.

"We feel-I feel, that you have been abusing your position on the force, Cortez." he announced with a shake of his large head. "It has been brought to our attention that you have been using our resources, police resources, to pull up the files of and to find out the whereabouts of several men named…" he paused, reaching a large, callused hand across his desk to grasp a printed sheet of paper. He squinted his eyes, scrutinizing the list of small, hard, black type. "Roberto Sawyer, Robert Sawyer, Bobby Sawyer, Bob Sawyer…and so on and so forth." he placed the sheet back down, smoothing the page flat before again fixing his glare upon Ana-Lucia's scowl. "Would you like to tell me who these men are? What you were thinking when you went through our records, police records, classified records, searching for them? Would you like to tell me how they are connected to you, because from where I am sitting, Ana, it looks very much like you are consorting with the criminals that we are trying to hunt down."

Ana-Lucia clenched her teeth together, turning her furious gaze instead to the wall directly behind Carlton's grey-haired head. She took a deep breath in through her nose, clasping her hands behind her back in a stance that had been ingrained into her from her five years upon the police force.

"Do you want me to clear out my desk now, _Sir_?" she asked, placing enough emphasis upon her superior's title to make it sound less than respectful and to make sure that he knew that she wasn't about to cooperate anytime soon.

Carlton sighed wearily, shaking his head again and pinching the bridge of his nose, disappointed that she had chosen not to explain.

"Yes. Yes, alright then, Cortez. If this is the way that you want to play it." he raised his bristly chin, squaring his hard, dark blue gaze onto her once more though this time it was without the friendliness that it had held previously. "I want you off the premises in one hour. Do I make myself clear?"

-End Flashback-

-oOo- 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3, yay and it's getting longer again! Hope you like this one. More Ana-thoughts and a confrontation between Sawyer and Jack.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Lost relater or the Waterhship Down quote that I have used in theis chapter.

**Chapter 3.**

Sawyer sat upon the cold stone ledge at the rear of the cave which was currently doubling as an examination table. He resisted the sarcastic urge to ask the doctor inspecting his arm if he would get a lollipop after it was all over for being a 'good boy'.

"So, Sawyer…." Jack stated, preventing the blonde haired man from making his satirical comment, as he cleaned the wound, eyes trained devoutly upon his task. "I see that you and Ana-Lucia are getting along pretty well all of a sudden. From what Michael told me about your time with them in the jungle, it sounded as if you and her were at loggerheads."

Sawyer grinned broadly, watching Jack's seemingly concentration filled face with something akin to smugness upon his own.

"What can I say? We _hit_ it off." he chuckled at his own joke, drawing a fleeting glance from Jack's cool eyes. "Getting' jealous, Doc?" his laughter increased at the other man's expense until Jack pressed a little too hard upon his injury, making Sawyer stop abruptly with a wince and hiss of pain. "Guess I'll take that little tickle as a 'yes' then, huh?"

Jack remained silent and stoic, unwilling to reveal anymore discomfort than he already had to his patient, moving away to retrieve a fresh bandage from where he kept them in a spare suitcase.

"Just curious." he responded to Sawyer at length, though his back was turned. "I met her before we got on the plane. We had a drink together."

Sawyer's grin grew wider, though irritation tingled behind it dangerously, his eye boring holes into the back of the doctor's dark haired head.

"How nice for you, Skipper." Sawyer snorted as the other man continued to hunt through his medical supplies, no doubt stalling, not wanting to turn around and face his opponent. "And I met her in the _wild_." Sawyer's emphasis upon his final word served it's purpose in drawing Jack's glance from over his shoulder suddenly. "People are different in the real world, Doc. All false and covered up by tryin' to fit in with everyone else. You don't know what a person's really all about until you take society outta the equation." his eyes flashed sapphire warning at Jack, locking them together in conflict yet again and it was a long moment of stunned silence before Jack stood and drew breath to reply.

Sawyer beat him to it, however, cutting him off before he could utter a single syllable. Eyes narrowing. Voice growling with threat.

"You helped Kate make her choice a long time ago, Chief. I'm just about to help Ana make hers…You can't take _this_ one away from me,_ Doctor_. You can't have 'em both!"

Jack's jaw clenched behind compressed lips and it was at that moment, before he could pound out a defensive response, before Sawyer could return to making sly comments, that Kate entered the cave with the bottles of water Jack had requested and their curious exchange of words became a tension-filled silence.

-oOo-  
Ana-Lucia shifted, uncomfortable with her sudden direction of thoughts and glanced about Sawyer's cobbled together shelter, desperate for some sort of distraction.

Since her most recent excursion to Sydney, she had sworn to herself that she would no longer dwell upon her memories. Her past needed to stay where it belonged. In the past, and why her mind was suddenly so intent on rehashing it all, she had no idea.

She reached out when a pile of books in the corner caught her eye as a suitable distraction, fingertips brushing lightly against the spines of them as she studied their titles and author's intently searching for one in particular.

Sawyer had horded a couple of modern titles that Ana was vaguely familiar with, even though she made a point of avoiding the chick-lit that swarmed the market now-a-days. A few kiddies novels covered in glitter and bright pictures of dragons and princesses and a pristine copy of 'Pride and Prejudice' that he obviously hadn't read yet.

Her hand wavered there for and extended heartbeat, sorely tempted to pocket the book for herself as Sawyer didn't seem particularly fond of it.

It was only when her gaze moved lower, did she notice what she had been searching for. A battered and creased orange and brown spine sporting the title in murky white lettering and she smiled, tugging it from it's place at the bottom of the stack.

"Watership Down." she murmured, flipping through the pages with a smile of remembrance firmly upon her features. She thumbed through to the place that Sawyer had book-marked with a tattered envelope. It was fairly early on in the story, still in the second of the four parts. Chapter 21. 'For El'ahrairah to Cry'.

The chapter must have meant something, must have had some significance for Sawyer to keep it book marked. The copy was battered to say the least. He had obviously read it numerous times over and yet on that first page of chapter 21, he had circled a quote making it stand out from the other above it. It leaped out from the page, demanding to be read.

"Acts of injustice done,  
Between the setting and the rising sun  
In history lie like bones, each one."

Her finger followed the words as she read them, her lips moved minutely, silently speaking as her brain registered what she was reading. A cold stab of steel emotion, sadness, struck deep in her chest as the very memories that she had been intent on repressing seeped into her mind. She remembered that quote…she remembered it's significance to her own past…

-Flashback-

___She crouched upon the very top brown-carpeted stair, breath stilling in her chest as she strained to hear the words of her mother and aunt downstairs in the small, dingy living room. Her stuffed toy rabbit wedged beneath her arm, cuddled to her for comfort. Ana pressed her forehead into the gap between the banister spindles, her little white-knuckled fists clasping onto them as if they were her prison bars._

___Her Mama was crying, sobbing and Ana could hear all to clearly, despite the fact that it was muffled as her aunt hugged her Mama desperately._

___"She's got a rich husband. Lives up in L.A, I think." her aunt was saying. "That bastard was always money-grubbing." she spat, venom lacing her tone. "Apparently they were going to con her husband out of all his money and then leave for Sydney, Australia. Lie low, spend their money on a permanent vacation."_

___Ana-Lucia slipped silently down a few stairs in an attempt to hear her mother's reply, but it was murmured. Barely more than a whisper._

___"Don't make excuses for him, Aniela! He's a bastard! Es un imbécil de tomo y lomo! He left you with four children! His children, to fend for yourself and all for a leggy blonde with fake tits and a bit of money. He deserves to rot in hell, Aniela!" her aunt's voice was furious, chopping and changing between English and Spanish. She was livid and though Ana couldn't see them from her spot on the stairs, she could picture the glare upon her Tia Lila's face. She'd had that irate stare focused upon her many times in her seven years and she shuddered, squeezing her eyes tight shut against that image. Her Papi must have done something very bad for her Tia Lila to be talking about him in such a way. She didn't even know how her aunt had gotten her information. Possibly it was because she had been dating Ana's Papi's best friend. A tall thin man who gave little Ana-Lucia the creeps and insisted that she call him 'Uncle Carlos'._

___Her mother's soft voice mumbled something that Ana again couldn't make out and in response her aunt Lila sighed, her voice loosing it's harshness immediately._

___"I know you loved him…no one can choose who they fall in love with, Aniela."_

___There was a long pause in which Ana wriggled and squirmed on the hard stair, attempting to get comfortable but also to no make any sound and alert the two women below to her presence._

___"He's changed his name. Says 'Cortez' doesn't sound impressive enough…Don't waste anymore tears on him. He's not worth your time."  
_  
-End Flashback-

Ana gritted her teeth against her second less than happy memory, eyes stinging with held back tears and she glanced down at her hands, at the crumpled envelope still marking chapter 21 and the quotation that had triggered it all.

The postal stamp said Tennessee and she hazily found herself thinking that she had never been there, for a second wondering, allowing herself to mull over what it was possibly like there.

Carefully, so as not to tear the fragile letter inside, she opened it, teasing the folded paper out and straightening it upon her lap.

She knew that she shouldn't have been reading it. She knew that it belonged to Sawyer and that she was betraying both his trust and his privacy by studying the spidery blue child's writing. But it was a distraction for her. It drew her away from her tortured past. It was a way for her to escape from the torment returning to her in flashes of upset.

It did not go as planned, however. Ana-Lucia's gaze never made it past the first line. Past the first sentence and neither did she elude the reminiscences that she so desperately wanted to.

"Dear Mr. Sawyer…"

Movement directly outside the shelter startled her out of her stupor and she hurriedly stuffed the letter back inside the tattered book and tossed it back a top the pile of books.

"Sorry to keep you waitin' so long on your own, Sugar." Sawyer drawled, ducking through and into his cramped home. His ice blue eyes flitted around taking stock of his belongings before focusing upon Ana-Lucia's face. Their cool depths intent upon hers narrowed.

He remained silent and unmoving for a long, drawn out moment in which Ana's heart was in her mouth, fearing that perhaps he knew that she'd seen his letter, but years on the polive force had given her thick skin and a hard faced attitude. So, instead of sheepishly making her excuses and escaping from her current situation beneath his questioning stare, Ana tossed her ebony curls back over her shoulder and raised her face towards him. Challenging Sawyer, daring him to accuse her of her crimes.

"Doesn't it hurt, standing like that?" she queried, using his previous words, breaking the silence and also the think tension that clouded around them suddenly.

She studied him intently, waiting for his reaction. The ball was in Sawyer's court now. He could either tell her to get out, address the problem head-on, as Jack or Kate probably would and destroy their sudden camaraderie, or he could ignore what she had done and continue whatever it was that they had begun earlier that day.

He snorted finally, kicking out with the toe of a muddy boot, catching her in the thick sole of her own footwear, sending jolt running up her leg and jarring into her lower spine.

"Move over then, _Fat-ass_." he grinned, dimples emblazoning his cheeks as he too through her own words back at her, as she had with his. "Before I change my mind."

Ana returned his smile, more out of relief than anything, before shifting slightly to one side and slowing Sawyer his seat beside her.

For the moment, it seemed, he had decided to ignore her curiousness, but she had no doubt that it would resurface later. Which one of them would bring it up was debateable and whether they would be willing to talk about it was a different matter altogether.

-oOo-


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: i don't own anything to do with Lost or the characters. **  
**

**Chapter 4.**

Ana smirked from where she stood between the trees, watching him struggle with the tarps of his shelter, trying to pin them back and allow fresh air into his living quarters, with the use of his good arm only.

It had been a couple of days since they had sought out each other's companionship, since Ana had found the curious letter stuffed into his copy of Watership Down and her memories had come back to haunt her once more. Sawyer had mentioned nothing about the letter and neither had she. They had simply sat together in silence, moving only when the announcement of the evening meal prompted them to, and after that they had parted ways in the slashing rain, with little more than a nod on either part. Ana going back to her own hastily thrown together shelter and Sawyer to his.

Following the three days of rain, however, had come the heat. Muggy. Cloying. Unbearable. Everyone gasped for breath, trying to claw the soupy air into their lungs. Everyone glittered with sweat, clothes and bodies damp.

"Need a hand, Igor?" she called, grinning as she stepped nearer to him, hands thrust into the back pockets of her newly hacked-up pair of cut-down denim shorts.

She didn't have legs as long as Sticks did, but in those dark blue, extremely short denims, they looked like they went on for miles and miles. Sawyer had to remind himself that she was watching him. That she would likely see him checking her out and reluctantly his eyes shifted as he glanced up into her face from where he was hunched over, injured arm cradled out of the way and across his middle for protection.

"Lord, I gone created a monster!" he growled, giving up on his task and straightening, his spine making an audible crackling sound in protest. "If I'da known you were gonna be spouting off nicknames left, right and centre…"

Ana-Lucia's grin broadened as his words became unintelligible mutters of half-hearted ire, and she stepped forth, picking up where he had left off, securing the blue plastic in place so that the entire front panel of his tent was lifted out of the way.

"How 'bout I call you Doctor Frankenstein then?" she gave a deep throated chuckle at her own words, fingers making swift work of tying knots that had kept Sawyer busy all morning and he plopped down to the ground in the mouth of his shelter, heavily and resigned.

"Funny, ha ha." he snorted, managing to unscrew his water bottle one-handed and taking a draught long enough to stagger his breathing.

Ana dropped to the ground beside him, stretching her legs out before her and supporting her weight on her arms as she leaned back, basking in the sun. She apparently was sticking around for a while meaning that she wanted something from him, or she wanted to talk.

Sawyer had not been blind three days prior, when he had returned to his tent and seen the look of guilt flash upon her face, albeit briefly. He'd noticed that his copy of Watership Down had been removed from where he had stowed it at the bottom of the stack. He'd seen how his letter had been opened and then stuffed haphazardly back into it's place as if she had panicked upon hearing him coming. And at first he had felt anger overwhelm him. He'd wanted to lash out at her and tell her to get out. But, something deep in her eyes had stopped him. Not the fear of being found out, but a fear created from remembrance, from something in her own past, something so akin to what he felt immersed in his own core. It had been like looking in a mirror then, his cool blue eyes staring into hers of dark brown, and his anger had melted, replaced by the connection he suddenly felt towards her.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" Sawyer queried at length, offering his water bottle to her and she mumbled a breathless thanks before also swallowing thirstily.

"You're alone." she shrugged as she replaced the bottle top and caught her breath. "I'm alone. No sense in us being lonely apart. May as well suffer together, no?" she shrugged again, placing the bottle within easy reach between them and Sawyer laughed, though it ended in a coughing fit due to the dryness of his throat.

Yes, indeed. It seemed she wanted to talk.

"Whatever you say, Fight-Club." he snorted, blue eyes twinkling with mirth as he glanced over at her. "And here I thought it was my animal magnetism."

Ana tossed her head back and released a bleat of hilarity, inky black hair cascading down her back in a low ponytail.

"Animal magnetism…" she repeated his words, giving her head an amused shake. "You an animal now, Tarzan?" she quirked an eyebrow and Sawyer shot her an exaggerated wink in return.

"Honey, you know it!" his smile shone brighter than the sun if that was at all possible and Ana laughed again, harder, dark eyes glittering alluringly.

"An injured one." she pointed out with a snort of her own, raising her face to the warming rays of the sun filtering through the jungle canopy. "Know what they use to do when a race-horse injured itself?" she squinted her eyes against the glaring light, turning to watch him as he took another drink, his throat constricting rhythmically as he swallowed deeply.

"I have a feeling you're gonna tell me anyways, Chica." he gasped, wiping the back of his good arm across his mouth and removing the moisture from his lips and bristly chin.

She smiled at that, amused with his answer and turned to look down at the caves, the people milling around. Going about their business. Helping one another. Smiling and laughing together.

"Send it to that big race-course in the sky." she stated, another chuckle tainting her words, though there was something biting, something embittered about it.

She was a strong woman, both emotionally and physically, Sawyer knew that just from looking at her, but something troubled her. Something muddied her thoughts, making her hard and cold to most of the other survivors. He could see, every now and again, the brightness of her true self shining through. When she laughed and smiled. When she looked up at him. But deep inside she was hurting. He could see his own traits and tendencies within her. Her actions and attitudes. Something from her past troubled her desperately, making her a harsh, abrupt person like a stone thrown into a still pond, making the water turbulent and stormy.

"You sayin' I need to be put down, Sugar!" he demanded incredulously, voice rising in both volume and pitch, succeeding in regaining her attention once more, though she only returned his previous gesture of an exaggerated wink.

He scowled, shifting so that his own legs stretched out alongside hers. She was an enigma to him. Sun he got. Shannon he could figure out. Claire was like reading a book and Kate he understood almost as well as he did himself. Ana-Lucia, however, was a mystery.

"How d'you know 'bout race-horses anyhow?" he growled, his gaze following the same path that hers had taken to the other survivors.

"My Papi use to bet on them a lot when I was a kid. Use to take me along and tell me to pick out my favourite horse and then he'd place a bet on it. No matter what it's odds were." she turned her gaze to the ground, a deep routed sadness taking over her previously playful demeanour. "He use to say I was his lucky mascot." she snorted, ire suddenly dissolving any upset that had been apparent in her tone. "Asshole!"

"Your daddy was an asshole too, huh?" Sawyer asked quietly, clenching his teeth together as a wave of anguish course through him. "Join the club."

Her gaze snapped to him abruptly, wondering if he was merely making conversation or trying to keep her talking but she noted the dark look passing through his eyes almost as easily as he had spotted the anguish within her.

"Guess we got something in common." she mused, picking at the sandy dirt that they sat on. "Your Papi leave your Mama?"

"Somethin' like that…" he muttered quietly in response, not yet quite ready to admit to her what had actually happened. He couldn't stand to see pity in her dark gaze. That would ruin whatever it was they had started. "Yours?"

Ana-Lucia gave a bitter laugh that held no amusement whatsoever.

"Yeah. Bastard ran off with a rich-ass blonde when I was seven. Never saw him again." she sighed, smoothing her palm over her drawn back hair, scalding hot with the sun beating down upon it and she tried to smile, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Still, it didn't work out for him. Last I heard he was living with a nineteen year old in Sydney."

"That why you were there?" Sawyer queried and Ana nodded, though she held something back, something that she wasn't quite ready to admit to him. Perhaps for the same reasons he had held his own tongue about his parents' fate.

"Something like that…" she echoed his phrase and once more they fell into a companionable silence one that neither felt the urge nor were willing to break.

-oOo- 


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Don't own Lost or the characters!**  
**

**Chapter 5.**

The heat it seemed, did not have any notion of relenting once it had won the battle over the rain and gained it's rule over the island. Hot days turned into suffocating nights keeping most of the survivors from decent sleep. Tempers frayed and nerves were shot causing even the most calm of people to snap at their companions keeping both Sawyer and Ana-Lucia amused to no end as they continued to spend afternoons and evenings simply sat in each other's company.

Ana found herself seeking refuge from the heat during the day down at the beach where the breakers and waves brought mist and spray in cooling wafts from the sea. Sawyer had yet to be given permission by Jack to venture that far, though Ana was certain, despite not being from a medical background herself, that the salt water would only help heal him up faster. Jack, apparently, was a man with a vendetta and that vendetta was apparently against Sawyer, though Ana was clueless as to what had gone on between them and Sawyer remained tight-lipped on the subject.

She glanced out at the crashing waves, the fierce sun already burning up the early morning mists that hugged the shoreline daybreaks. It was beautiful. She couldn't deny that.

"Come to seek some solitude?"

Ana spun at the sound of the familiar female voice, trying hard to keep her features from registering her ire at being interrupted and by the very last person she wanted to speak to, no less.

"Maybe." she responded, a little less politely than she should have. She didn't need the added stress of another argument, especially when she'd barely had four hours of sleep the previous night.

Kate stepped up beside her, curling brown locks framing her face and petite shoulders as she too let her gaze linger on the seascape before them.

Silence dragged out between them, though not the comforting silence that she experienced with Sawyer. She felt on edge, her teeth grinding together almost of their own accord as she folded her arms across her chest.

Wait. A voice inside told her. Wait and see what she has to say for herself before you start knocking out her teeth.

"Heard you've been taming the Tennessee Tiger." Kate mused, lips thin and words as wooden and hard as Ana's were.

"Great use of alliteration and all, but I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sawyer." Kate illuminated, green stare snapping to meet Ana's in the slowly heating air separating them. "You've been spending a lot of time with him lately."

Ana eyed Kate warily, trying to gauge what she was getting at, trying to see through her deceptively light tone and easy conversation and see what she really wanted.

"And?"

The smaller woman drew in a steadying breath through her nose, swallowing what was no doubt a bitter retort. Instead she smiled thinly, glancing back out at the sea.

"And nothing." she replied, airily. "He's been through a lot, you know."

"Haven't we all." Ana stated plainly and Kate made a noise of frustration deep in the back of her throat.

"Before the crash, I meant." she shook her head but Ana-Lucia merely shrugged.

"So did I."

The pause in Kate's speech was a welcome rest for Ana and she hoped that that would be an end to it. That Kate would get the hint and leave her alone. It was the best way to keep the peace between them. To stay apart.

Kate, however, had other ideas.

"You know about his parents, right?" Kate queried, trying and failing to sound uninterested. "That his father killed his mother and then himself?"

"I don't think it's any of my business. And I don't think it's any of yours either." Ana snapped in return, irritation beginning to tingle at the back of her awareness.

"I thought he would have told you by now considering how much time you spend together." Kate smoothed her hair back, fastening it into a band to keep it out of the way. The smile curling at the corner of her lips betrayed the smugness that she was otherwise keeping well hidden. Obviously she was revelling in the fact that Sawyer had not taken it upon himself to let Ana in on his terrible past, whereas he clearly had with her.

Ana shrugged, keeping her emotions calm and her features even more so, even though the shorter woman at her side was beginning to annoy her immensely.

"I think Sawyer can do what the hell he wants." she growled and Kate broke out into a false smile.

"Of course." she placated and Ana rolled her eyes as she continued to stare at the frothy white waves. "He is a grown man, after all."

"Look, do us both a favour and get to the point," Ana sighed impatiently. She was sick of Kate's superior smile, sick of her condescending words, thinking that she was better than Ana, all because Sawyer had told her something that he hadn't yet ventured to herself. "I don't want to spend my morning playing riddle-me-this with you."

Kate's eyes narrowed as did her smile, teeth no doubt clenching behind it's false friendliness. She nodded her head twice, in short, sharp bobs, folding her arms across her chest.

"I've heard what you did to him when you first met. I've heard how you acted towards him. You're the reason his wound got infected. You stamped on it! You were going to leave him to die!"

Ana opened her mouth to defend herself, to tell Kate where she could go and shove her lectures but the petite brunette continued speaking before Ana had chance to draw breath.

"Sawyer had a rough time here on the island even before you showed up, and he's had an even worse time in the past. What he needs is a little sympathy. A little compassion and if you can't give it to him, then he needs you to stay the hell away from him!"

Ana-Lucia turned slowly so that she was standing face-to-face with the woman intent upon hating her, for no true reason, it seemed, than she didn't like Ana's involvement with either Jack nor Sawyer. The girl couldn't make up her mind. She wanted them both and she wanted Ana-Lucia as far away from their camp as possible.

Her smouldering stare squared with Kate's and for an instant, uncertainty flickering in those emerald irises. She thought that Ana was going to hit her, and though it was what Ana would have dearly, sorely loved to do at that second, she didn't. She wouldn't, no matter how hard Kate tried to provoke her.

"Listen, Chica, hate to break it to you…but I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want." her eyes bored into Kate's noting the fury boiling there beneath the surface, lurking just behind the cool, collected front that she had erected. "The minute Sawyer tells me he don't want my company, sure, I'll leave him be. The minute he pisses me off, yeah, I'm gone. Until then, ain't nothin' you can say that's gonna make me do what you just asked." She stood to her full height, uncoiling her arms from where she had folded them defensively, causing Kate to take a half-step back. "If you knew anything about Sawyer whatsoever, you'd know that he don't want pity. Not from you and certainly not from me," she snorted to herself, in brief, irate amusement. "He needs someone to be straight with him, for once in his damn life and if that means pissing him off or saying something a little harsh, so be it." she shook her head, taking one last final glare at Kate's scowling features before stalking towards the waves, away from the palm trees beneath which they stood. "And you ever tell me what to do again, Kate…" she graced the brunette with a thin, humourless smile, tossed over her shoulder, hair shifting in the slight sea breeze. "…I'll knock you out!"

-oOo- 


	6. Chapter 6

And so I have a mega update of like 4 chapters. Hope that makes up for not posting in a while and also for not thanking people personally for reviewing. work has been a tad hectic of late and my writing time has been cut in half so apologies.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Lost...I'm not that lucky!

**Chapter 6.**

"Well howdy, Freckles! Long time no see!"

He'd seen her marching her way up from the beach earlier that day. Her movements stalking and irate. Her eyes blazing and fist clenched. Something was bothering her, had riled her up into a frenzy and he'd bet everything he owned that that something was an ebony haired Latino woman who had disappeared in the direction of the beach that very morning.

She hadn't come to him directly though. No, she'd mulled and fumed over whatever it was that had happened between the pair of them, though it had not been physical, much to Sawyer's relief. No black-eyes, as Ana had threatened to give her the first day that she had spoken to him properly. No bloody lips or cracked teeth. He hadn't missed the big fight after all, though everyone could sense that it was coming, even the likes of Hurley and Charlie watched with wary eyes when the two women where in a fifty foot radius of each other. Tempers boiled like molten rocks waiting to spew forth from cracks deep in volcanic mountains. It was only a matter of time before they came head to head, before punches were thrown and kicks exchanged and he was beginning to feel more and more concern about it. No longer was he intent on getting those front row seats, he knew that it was far more important than that. It was going to be no mere playground scuffle or a bitch-slap.

It was nearing evening, the sun sinking behind the tree-line, painting the stretching blue sky, slowly orange and amber and red. Colours of warning if ever he had seen them before and Kate walked towards him where he sat at the mouth of his tent, glasses perched on the end of his nose as he glanced over his book at her. Her arms folded loosely, linked across her slim middle, her eyes trained on the ground, watching her feet taking those small steps as if they were doing so of their own accord.

"How are you, Sawyer?" she queried lightly, coming to a halt at his feet and Sawyer grinned up at her, pushing his glasses up onto the top of his head, making it look like he sported an Alice-band. "How's your arm?"

He shrugged, placing his book page down onto the ground, effectively keeping his place and he gestured to the floor before him.

"Pull up a pew, Sugar, an' I'll tell you all about it."

Kate returned his wide smile with one of her own, doing as he instructed and sitting, cross-legged before him, resting her elbows on her knees. She studied him for a long moment, holding his blue gaze, albeit a little nervous of his watch.

"How've you been?" she asked again, making conversation. Concern perhaps making her eyes shine emerald more than usual and Sawyer had to chuckle to himself, stretching and folding his arms behind his head as he leaned against his stacked up belongings.

"Doc says I'm on the mend, but I woulda thought he'd have told you that already." he narrowed his eyes in amusement as Kate had enough grace to blush and turn her gaze to the sandy soil. It seemed that Sawyer was right about the good doctor not quite knowing the meaning of doctor-patient confidentiality. "So, what can I do you for?" he asked, noting her discomfort with the sudden silence.

Her eyes flickered up to meet his and she attempted to once more paint a friendly smile upon her features, though she ultimately failed at keeping it there.

"I wanted to talk to you." she said suddenly, air from a held in breath whooshing out as she spoke.

Straight to the point. No banter. No flirting. She meant business this time and Sawyer found himself wondering what exactly Ana-Lucia could have said to the brunette to get her so worked up. And also what it had to do with him.

"About…?" he prompted, sitting forwards when she fell silent once more and she fidgeted slightly, picking at her less than perfect nails, trying to scrape the dirt out from beneath them.

She was either going to give him some bad news, tell him something that would most likely ruin his whole damn night, or she was playing a very cunning game. Was she being genuine for once in their something-a-little-more-than-friendship? Or was she schooling him into giving the reaction that she wanted him to? Was this another incident like the Halliburton case they had found in the waterfall pool? Once she had failed to get the metal briefcase from his possession herself, she had played her hand craftily. Thrown down her Jack of Hearts and blown his hand out of the water. She'd got the good doctor to do her dirty work for her, not for the first and neither for the last time apparently.

Manipulation was Kate's forte and in it, she was a maestro.

"Ah," Sawyer nodded to himself when she remained quiet. He knew where it was all heading suddenly. "This is about Rambina, huh? 'Bout Ana?" he gave a knowing smile when Kate's features hardened at his nickname for the other woman.

"Maybe." she replied, a bitter timbre entering her tone and her eyes hardened, darkening as she refused to meet his. "I met her down at the beach this morning."

"Figured as much." he chuckled, squinting his eyes against the glare of the setting sun and glancing towards the beach path. "She should be makin' an appearance anytime soon."

"I'll make this quick then!" Kate snapped, glaring up at him suddenly and noticing that his attention had wandered from her when at one point a few weeks ago it had only ever been for her. "God forbid that I over-run into Ana-Lucia Cortez time!"

Sawyer's smirk became a serious compressing of his lips together at her sarcastic words and angry tone. Thin and mirthless and he snorted, though not in amusement.

"Now, now, Freckles. No need to get all snappy. There's plenty of me to go 'round." his smile may have returned but it did not reach as far as his eyes. His words didn't hold their usual flirtation. Despite what he had said, it seemed that he meant something entirely different.

Kate either missed his slight irritation or ignored it effectively, laughing lightly as she sat up straighter and pinned him with a softer glance.

"I'm just looking out for you, Sawyer." she said softly and he sighed, relaxing back into his semi-recumbent position against his suitcases. "I just don't want her to treat you like dirt. You deserve more than that."

"Is that what it looks like to you?" he asked, removing his glasses from his head with another deep, weary sigh and placing them atop his book.

He had been reading Watership Down. Again. Kate didn't have a clue what made the book so great in his eyes, or Ana-Lucia's…but apparently whatever it was had drawn them together closer in the past week than she had ever been with Sawyer over the prior months. Sure, there had been an attraction between them in the beginning, whereas, from what she had gleaned from interrogating Michael, Ana-Lucia had treated him like the dirt on her shoe. But her own connection with him had waned when he had left on the raft, and now he was seemingly returning the blow. An eye for an eye.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does." she retorted, thoughts suddenly making resentment for the other woman swirl in her already dark tone. "She beat you up, Sawyer! When you were injured! If that's not maltreatment, I don't know what is!"

Sawyer remained motionless for an extended moment, eyes shining in the sun's dying light with an emotion that Kate couldn't quite register.

"I remember being on the receiving end of one too many of your head-buts to be complainin' 'bout anything Ana has put me through." he replied calmly. "Besides, she's straight with me. No manipulation bullsht." he shrugged again, ignoring her furious, flashing green eyes. "I don't do mind-games…And she's good company."

"That's it?" Kate demanded, eyebrows raised in question. "She's just someone for you to pass time with?"

He shifted in his seat deliberately slow, leaning forwards to square her with a grim features and a set jaw. She thought he was doing it to get back at her? For choosing Jack over him?

"You'd know all about using people to while away those long, boring hours now, wouldn't you, Freckles?"

Kate flushed in irate embarrassment at his insinuation but Sawyer didn't give her time enough to defend herself, standing abruptly and startling her out of her stunned silence.

"Well, lookie here! Speak of that darn She-Devil!" he grinned sarcastically and Kate glanced over her shoulder to where he was indicating the beach path and Ana-Lucia's arrival with his good arm.

She walked with her head high, chatting to Libby and Claire strangely enough, and her dark gaze flickered over to Sawyer, landing on Kate briefly before turning cold as she headed for the inner caves, no doubt to retrieve fresh water.

"If we're all done here, Freckles, I'm gonna go while away some more of my long, lonely life." he snorted, shaking his head and shoving his hands deep in his jean pockets as he began his way down towards the cave mouth, leaving Kate where she sat.

She frowned at the ground, at the place he had vacated, listening to the tromp of his thick soled boots.

"Sawyer!" she called out suddenly and he pause in his stride, shoulders bobbing up and down with a great, heaved sigh of impatience. "She asked me about your parents!"

Silence fell between them once the words, the lie, had fallen from her lips, almost unbidden. She half wanted to take them back and tell him to forget that she had said anything at all. But her fear of being replaced by another woman, even in the eyes of the very man that she had turned down, made her hold her tongue and see what his reaction was going to be.

"She did, huh?"

"I told her that you'd had a rough life and she wanted to know why. When I told her…she said she felt sorry for you."

He didn't even look back at her, he didn't even have to for her to know that she had created an anger in him that burned deep. For a moment she thought that it was aimed at her, until he looked back at her and released a bitter chuckle.

He'd never seen an ounce of pity in Ana-Lucia's gaze when she'd been with him before and that was possibly the reason that he enjoyed her company so much. They had never been hung up on judgement or feeling sorry for what the other had gone through. They rarely, if ever, spoke about their pasts and Sawyer had thought that perhaps the island mantra of "getting to start a new life" had finally been coming true for him.

"Guess I was wrong…" he murmured to himself, ignoring Kate when she asked him if he'd said something and if he was alright.

And so his letter, his past had once again come back to haunt him. To make sure that he remained as he had always been, and was likely to always be. Alone.

-oOo- 


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7.**

She saw him storming his way into the jungle, swiping as the leaves and foliage furiously. She noted the pain that such movements caused and how that, in turn, only fuelled his anger.

"Ana?" Libby queried with that knowing light in her eyes. Her lips were on the brink of a smirk but to the woman's credit she disguised it well, masked by a curious, concerned frown. "Something wrong?"

Ana shrugged, her eyes lingering on Sawyer's retreating form for the briefest of seconds longer, before she squared her hard stare upon the older blonde. Libby, however, effectively ignored the dark look, turning to share a conspiratorial glance with their other companion, cradling a baby in her arms.

"Nothing is wrong!" Ana insisted as Claire, less able to efficiently control her facial features, grinned broadly.

"Looks like something's got Sawyer's knickers in a twist…" she chuckled, smoothing her hand over her son's downy hair and ignoring that Ana's ire was now focused upon her.

"So?" Ana demanded, trying desperately to sound nonchalant and uncaring. She folded her arms defensively which only served to make Libby look more triumphant. She was psychoanalysing her again and Ana suddenly remembered why she had not been spending much time with her fellow tail-survivor over the past stretch of days. "Anyway, what was I saying?"

Libby laughed lightly as if Ana's swift bid to change the subject had been something that she had predicted all along. It was evidence apparently, to some crazy idea that the pair of blondes had gotten into their air-filled heads.

"I don't know…" Libby continued, eyes narrowing in well controlled amusement. "Maybe you should go after him…"

"Why the hell would I do that!" Ana snapped, defensively. "He's a grown man and doesn't need me running around after him!" she shifted slightly in discomfort, penned in by an offensive on both sides. Questions and insinuations hurled from both woman. It was a conspiracy! She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear which only earned another of Libby's '_I know you're covering something up_' looks.

"It is getting dark." Claire added suddenly making Ana suspect that the two of them had some sort of telepathic abilities, reading each others minds and possibly her own to boot. "And he is injured. He wouldn't have a chance if something went after him…"

The look in Ana's eyes changed suddenly, flickering back to where Sawyer had disappeared into the thick jungle undergrowth. She hovered on the edge of making her decision. Torn between concealing her obvious concern for the Southerner's well-being and dashing after him, not caring that Libby and Claire knew of her worry.

She shot them both a wary glance from the corner of her dark eyes, studying them for any hint of what their reactions would be whatever she decided to do.

"Maybe…maybe someone should go and tell him to stop being an idiot. He _knows_ that no one should leave the caves alone at night!" she coughed, shuffling as discomfort once again prickled the back of her neck as she paused beneath the two blue-eyed stares.

"Maybe someone should." Claire agreed at length, smile growing and Ana rounded her irritation upon the young mother and the therapist once more, sending their knowledgeable, dancing eyes darting around the cave for something other than her to focus their attention onto.

"Guess that someone's me, huh?" Ana growled, though her irritation was feigned. "No, never mind. Let's stick Ana-Lucia with the dirty work. She's tough. She can hack it!" she snarled, rolling her eyes and stalking away from them towards where Sawyer had broached the tree line.

"That is _so_ cute." Claire breathed once she was satisfied that the distance between them was enough and that there was no possible way that Ana-Lucia could overhear her.

"Fascinating!" Libby concurred, still studying Ana's movements as she dwindling into the distance. "But don't let her hear you saying that, or she'll rip you a new one."

-oOo-

"You got a death wish, Rambo?"

He heard her voice calling him from behind and his jaw clenched tighter. Fists balled themselves at his sides and his pace increased despite the pain flaring in his shoulder at the extensive movements.

"You deaf now too!" she called louder. Her legs weren't as long as his were and she had to double her speed to even keep him in sight. "Okay, Claire was right. Something's got your dick in a knot." she chuckled and Sawyer flashed a glare over his shoulder, noting that she had stopped to lean languidly against the thick trunk of a tree.

"Come after me 'cause you felt sorry, huh?" he sneered continuing his furious stalking away from both her and the camp and she remained silent for a long time, though he heard her footsteps following him once more.

"Why would I feel sorry for you?" she tried again to turn the mood, make it lighter and less oppressive. "I mean, talk to someone like Bonnie back there and you deserve all the angst you get!" she loosed a barking laugh at her own words, beneath which Sawyer could hear her tingling anger at his suddenly foul mood. "I learnt that the hard way this morning."

Sawyer snorted, swiping at the vines blocking his path with a clenched fist.

"Yeah? That ain't the only thing you learned this mornin' though, now was it?"

That stopped her from following him. Stopped her dead in her tracks and though he wanted nothing more than to put greater distance between them at that particular moment, he stopped also, turning to glance over his shoulder.

"This is about what happened between me and her this morning, isn't it?" Ana stated, rather than asked, her brow drawing down into a confused frown as she folded her arms. "You're pissed that I laid into 'your girl' again, huh?" she ran her tongue over the teeth at the very back of her mouth, biting it in an attempt to hide both her true rage and also keep her silence until she had heard what he had to say.

Sawyer rounded on her faster than either imagined that he could with his injury and to Ana-Lucia's credit she merely flinched slightly, her expression remaining stoic as her mood blackened to a shade not dissimilar to his.

"I'm pissed," he spat, his voice deepening with fury, pupils dilating and making his sparkling blue irises turn stormy. "Because of what you told her!"

"You're pissed I told her to mind her own business? That she should keep her nose out of other people's sht?" she queried, fiercely. "Or was it the comment about knocking her out that's got you all jacked-up?"

Sawyer shook his head, turning his face towards the night sky glimpsed between the tree canopy above their heads. He laughed, a blank, flat laugh of fury through gritted teeth, smoothing his hands back over his lengthening blonde hair.

"You're one to talk about keeping' your nose outta other people's sht, Chica." he growled and Ana's dark eyes flashed suddenly in comprehension.

"This about the letter then?" her voice lowered, the fire receding momentarily even as she raised her chin to him, staring him squarely in his face, no shame or repentance present. "Wondered when that was gonna come back and haunt me."

Anger surged within his chest again, turning the blood in his veins to liquid heat, scorching him from inside-out.

"Oh, you wondered, huh?" he sneered, sarcasm twisting his words harshly. "You wondered if I was gonna call you on it or let you off?"

"I didn't read it." she ground out from between her teeth and Sawyer laughed again, throwing his head back once more and releasing an even more furious laugh if it was at all possible.

"Sure, Sugar. _I_ believe you, _thousands_ wouldn't."

"I didn't!" she insisted. "I was going to. But I only got to the name…"

"Mr Sawyer?" he interrupted, eyes narrowed, his smile holding only hostility and frostiness towards her now. "Yeah, bet you figured it out too, huh? I took my name from him. To remind me of what I never wanted to be…of what I turned into. A Bastard! Mr Sawyer!" he shouted it to the trees crowding around them, penning them in from above. "Mr Sawyer, screwed my momma and that made my daddy shoot her. Used a shotgun an' opened up a _big_ one in her. Then he shot himself. Brains right 'cross my bedroom wall!"

Ana swallowed hard, nostrils flaring with a sudden emotion that seemed so foreign upon her face. Sorrow. Upset. Though her eyes shimmered with tears, she did not allow them to fall, did not allow Sawyer the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

"Don't you cry for me! I don't want your goddamn pity!" Sawyer snarled but Ana didn't hear him, too lost in her own remembrance.

-Flashback-

_She hammered against the door, glancing over her shoulder out into the pitch black road. Neon lights from the strip-joint across the road glared at her, making her squint against their brightness and turn back to knock on the door once more._

It swung inwards revealing him, standing in a stained vest and low-slung jeans similarly as filthy and Ana-Lucia had to keep her disgust from registering on her features.

His black eyes glanced at her only half warily. He looked her up and down, taking her in as he smoothed a hand back over his greasy, silver-streaked black hair.

"Yeah?" he grunted, cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips as he leaned up against the doorframe. "What you want?"

"Carlos Revera?" she queried, keeping her tone polite and fighting the temptation to use her authorities 'police officer' tone. That would merely scare him away, make him think that it was an undercover raid on his property and Ana couldn't afford to lose everything that she had worked so hard to gain since her dismissal from the force months ago.

"Who's askin'?" he grunted again, taking the cigarette from his lips and blowing smoke out into her face, making her lungs burn with the air to cough.

She had to do this. It was the only way. Everything pointed back to him. The man stood before her who had haunted her childhood.

"You don't remember me." she stated and he hacked out a brief laugh, raising his eyebrows at her as if to let her know that she had just stated the obvious. "You knew my father. You dated my Aunt for a while back when I was a kid."

"I ain't payin' her no child support if that's what you've come for!" he snapped suddenly, stepping back from the door and making to slam it in her face, but Ana stopped him, slamming her hand flat against the panel of the front door.

"Please, it's not about that!" she replied. "I'm Ana-Lucia Cortez."

His eyes narrowed as he searched her face for truth, scrutinizing her as he drew hard on his cigarette.

"Cortez, huh? I remember you now."

Relief flashed through her body for all but a few minutes.

"I need to know where my Papi is." she stated, getting back to the matter at hand. The sooner she could get out from beneath the stare of the man who had broken her Aunt's heart and who had given her the chills as a child, the better.

"Sorry, can't help you." he barked and once more the door began to shut in her face. She rammed her foot into the gap, forcing her way up onto the top step and half into his filthy house.

"Please, Carlos. I need to know where he is!" she begged, gritting her teeth against it. She had stooped to her lowest. Begging, pleading with a man like Revera. A man like her father. But she would do anything, absolutely anything to get to him. To look the man that had ruined her mother's life and sentenced her to a premature death in the form of a paracetamol overdose, in the eyes once more. _Anything!  
_  
Carlos, considered her once more, eyes running over her in a way that she remembered and that made her feel sick.

"What's it worth?" he asked, jerking his head and grinning widely, revealing yellowing, nicotine stained teeth. "I don't operate for free. I ain't no charity donor."

Ana ground her teeth, turning to rummage through her pockets and find any money that she had on her person at all.

"I've only got a few dollars. I can get you more. Tomorrow, if you just tell me where he is!"

"No deal!" he snapped.

Desperation was a dangerous thing to display, Ana knew that deep down, but months of searching had left her tired. Tired of being disappointed. Of always being one step away from her goal. Of never seeing justice done.

Carlos, sniffed suddenly as if the change of emotion deep in her eyes had given him an idea. He had seen her hopelessness and he had seen that she would do anything for his information.

"Why don't you step in here with your Uncle Carlos, Ana." he grinned, blowing more smoke down into her face and this time she couldn't hold back the coughs. "I'm sure we can figure something out for payment."

-oOo-  
_The room was dark and she sat upon the filthy bed, head in hands, fighting the disgust in the pit of her stomach._

"He moved to Sydney. Got a new girlfriend over there. Younger than you even! His own daughter! But he did always want to live down-under." Carlos laughed deep in the back of his throat and Ana stood abruptly, storming from the room. Trying to escape what she had done.

When would it all end?  
  
-End Flashback-

"I don't want your pity!" Sawyer repeated vehemently, dragging her from her memory and Ana resisted the urge to turn around an throw-up.

"I never gave you any!" she snapped back, swallowing hard at the burning lump in her throat.

Sawyer paused, in half a mind to believe her. He searched her face, noted the agony there from, what he couldn't imagine.

"Kate told me-"

"Maybe Kate is a fcking liar!" Ana roared, wild in her anger now, fixing him with a glare so dark it almost knocked the wind out of him. "You ever thought of that one, _genius_!"

And suddenly she whirled away, taking off at a dead, flat out run back through the trees towards the caves and Sawyer at first thought that she was trying to get away from him. Her clenched fists, however, her furious movements and the look that he had seen in her eyes told him that she wasn't running away, she wasn't the type of girl to dash off to sob her heart out. No. She was heading for the caves. She was heading for Kate and they were all heading for trouble!

-oOo- 


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8.**

Kate didn't know what had hit her. Standing conversing with Claire and Libby having seen Ana-Lucia's disappearance after Sawyer and needing a way to work out some of her nervous energy, hoping that 'Girl-talk' would take her mind off what she had just put into motion.

She had been unaware that the raven haired woman would come gunning for her so soon. Striding into the caves, eyes blazing, teeth clenched, firsts hard and white-knuckled.

It had been the widened eyes of Claire, both startled and startling, the collective gasps and shouts of the other survivors, that had first warned her of Ana-Lucia's furious presence.

She pivoted to face her, preparing herself for another argument. She hadn't, however, been ready for the right hook that flew her way, luckily glancing off her jaw without breaking anything, though it made her teeth ache and sent her sprawling into the dirt.

It seemed Ana's anger, her blind rage and her run through the jungle had made her aim less than accurate. She was already breathing hard giving Kate the advantage, but she didn't care, drawing her fist back to strike again as Kate staggered to her feet.

The blow hit home that time, though Kate managed to keep her footing by back-pedalling frantically, hand flying up to protect the eye that Ana had just hit, splitting her eyebrow open and tainting her vision red.

Claire's panicked scream went ignored by the two women, but alerted others to the brawl taking place. Jack was there in a moment, ducking out of the cave designated for medical uses with Michael in tow. They yelled at them both, tried to grab hold of Ana-Lucia's arms and drag her back and away but she managed to slip through their grasps and sent another blow at her chestnut-haired opponent.

Kate was quick on her feet, however, twisting her lithe body away so that the punch lost any, if not all, of it's entire force and instead she used the momentum that Ana had gained in her charge to lay her own swift strike upon her assailant.

Anger was not a problem for Kate, though ire had begun to tingle within her chest. Her aim was dead on. Direct, landing square in Ana's furious face and despite the distinct lack of power behind it, despite that she was a hell of a lot lighter built than Ana was, a sickening crack of bone breaking resounded through the air, bouncing from cave floor to ceiling.

Blood splattered the ground, spraying out in a wide arc as Ana's head snapped to the side. She didn't acknowledge the pain though. It was consumed, only serving to fuel her, to keep the adrenalin coursing through her veins.

Michael took his chance at Ana's pause to restrain her but she shirked his arms away, regaining her breath and touching her nose tentatively before turning to face Kate, head high at a proud angle.

"What the hell was that for!" Kate demanded, gasping in air incredulously, though deep down in the pit of her churning stomach she knew and was unsurprised when her query went by ignored.

Ana had cooled her fiery temper enough by then to satisfy Michael that she wasn't going to try anything else.

"Calm down, Girl." he gasped, wiping away the sweat on his brow exerted by trying to hold her back. "Jack, I think her nose is broken!"

The sharp blow that had indeed broken Ana's nose, sending hot, bitter, metallic-tasting fluid pouring forth down her lips and chin, staining her bronze skin crimson with it's flow, had served as a wake up call. Chased away the fogginess that fury had blinded her with.

She, like Michael had before, took her chance when his back was turned, seeking medical attention for her as Jack dashed for his first aid kit. She lunged for Kate once more, catching them all off guard and Kate wasn't fast enough to dodge the blow that time. Ana collided with her producing a deep, thick thud, fist knocking the air from Kate's lungs and making them ache fiercely. She doubled over, arms clutched to her aching torso but the blow that Ana jabbed down onto her back with her elbow was the one that sent her finally careering face fist into the dusty ground.

"Ana!"

The yell drew everyone's glance around but unlike the spectators and her opponent, Kate was willing to take full advantage of the distraction, rolling onto her back and kicking out as hard as she could with her heel, catching the other woman in her chest and sending her staggering backwards.

"Ana!" Sawyer yelled again and Kate gave into the pain finally, curling onto her side and fighting against the sick, winded feeling consuming her innards. She winced, watching through bleary eyes as Ana regained her footing and started towards her once more, spitting curses in Spanish that made Hurley cover his ears.

Michael grabbed hold of Ana's arm a second time though, halting her movements and holding on tight enough so that she couldn't shake him off, couldn't rip her arm free even as she tried to with all her might. 

"Ana!" Sawyer growled breathlessly, shoving the man holding her back and away before forcing himself before her, preventing her from going after the brunette on the floor who Jack was suddenly beside and tending to.

She glared up at him, into his face, shoving him so hard in the chest that he himself took a step backwards, though he refused to back away, catching her dark eyes with his, piercing blue.

"_Leave_ it, Girl-fight. Easy now."

"What's the matter, Sawyer?" Jack called suddenly, drowning out any incensed response Ana had been about to hurl at him. The taller man stood from his crouch and stepped over Kate as Sawyer turned to face him, arms spread wide to keep the Latino woman behind him from slipping around. "One fight in the ring at any one time, didn't you say to me once? Or do the rules not apply what it's a fight that concerns you!" Jack's glare was challenging, a fury that had been boiling within him ever since they had first met, finally showing, finally spilling over the brim and disrupting his quiet, controlled manner.

"You sure know how to pick your moments, Doc." Sawyer sneered with a false laugh. "What? You want me to let, Chica go? Let 'em go at it? 'Cause you _know_ I ain't lyin' when I say they'll tear each other to pieces if I do. And you _know_ I ain't lyin' when I say that Freckles there ain't gonna be the conquering hero!"

Jack's jaw clenched, teeth grinding together visibly behind thin, pursed lips but Sawyer only continued, turning and moving Ana-Lucia backwards by forcing his body into hers and pushing her powerfully.

"You _really_ chose the wrong time to pick me up on my questionable morals, Jackass. Now I suggest you drop it and do your _damn_ job!" he growled, jerking his thumb in Kate's direction and reluctantly, grudgingly, Jack nodded his assent to the blonde man's request.

"What about Ana's nose? It's broken." Jack queried, voice flat, devoid of any emotion whatsoever. "I'm gonna need to take a look at it."

"_I_ will goddamn look at it!" Sawyer hissed, not even bothering to look back at the other man, his competitor, his rival in so many areas. "I'll bring her to you in the morning."

Ana ripped herself away from him suddenly, ducking beneath his arm and drawing a yell from his throat as he tried to grab her arm and she drew her foot back. Kate wheezed, closing her eyes tight and awaiting the kick to her face that would end it all in seconds but it never came. Ana scuffed the dirt, sending a shower into Kate's scrunched up face and spat a great gob of blood and saliva onto the ground before her fallen adversary.

"_Puta_!" she snarled in thick Spanish before Sawyer jerked her away by the crook of her arm roughly, steering her from the caves.

-oOo- 


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9.**

"Swill your mouth out." he stated, thrusting his water bottle at her as she sat in the back of his shelter, to which he had dragged her, claiming 'like hell he was going to leave her alone to choke on her own blood and die in her sleep'. According to him, she could do that just as well in his tent.

She glared up at him but he ignored her dark glances and shoved the bottle into her hands, forcefully.

"Swill it_ out!_" he demanded again and begrudgingly, with furious, jerking movements, Ana took a mouthful of the cooling liquid, swishing it around her teeth and cheeks to get rid of the sickening, copper taste of her own blood that was beginning to turn her stomach.

He knelt before her, watching her closely until he was certain that she had made a decent job of cleaning her mouth out.

"Now spit." he held a plastic cup, one that she hazily recognised from on the airplane, up to her mouth and she pinned him with a withering glare. She'd been punched in the face, she wasn't a child or completely incompetent! She could look after herself. She'd been on the police force for god's sake! If she hadn't had her mouth full at that moment, she would have laid into him. "_Spit_!"

Grudgingly though, she spat the water, now warm and tainted red, into the cup he held for her and he turned, opening the tarps covering the entrance to his tent and chucked the contents of the cup out onto the hard packed, trodden earth.

"I can take care of myself!" she hissed, wanting nothing more than to escape from his diligent custody. She felt like a prisoner. Like an inmate. Now she knew how it had felt for all of those men and woman and youths that she had caught during her career. She hated every minute of it. Every second!

Adrenalin still buzzed through her body, though she could feel it draining, being replaced by fatigue and the first dull throbs of pain. She knew that she'd be in agony once her body came down from 'fight-mode' and she'd suffer more the next day when the pounding headache started and the sun's heat intensified.

"I know you can, Rocky." Sawyer replied, his tone gruff as he turned his concentration to rummaging through his many bags, searching for something. Clicks and clacks of plastic, glass and metal objects ricocheting off each other sounded out around the cramped shelter until he turned back, a brown medicine bottle of iodine in his hand.

"Where d'you get that?" Ana demanded, blood still pouring down her face and making her splutter. "I though Jack had all the medical supplies?"

Sawyer gave a snort of brief amusement as he reach for one of his older shirts.

"Thought it would be handy for me to have my own supplies," he responded with a nonchalant shrug. "Seeing as how I ain't the most popular of people 'round this neighbourhood. Look's like it's payin' off now though, huh?" his blue eyes glanced up to meet hers but Ana turned away, frown darkening her gaze and she shifted as more blood trickled from her fractured nose.

"Hold still, Chica." he stated, reaching forwards to clean the wet crimson stains from her face but she batted his hands away ferociously. 

"I can do it _myself_!" she snarled as he tried once more and again she fended him off. "I don't need your help!"

Sawyer's own eyebrows drew down into a frown and he grabbed her blood-slicked chin in his hand, turning her face back towards him a little less gently than he had intended, making her wince.

"I know you don't need my help." he replied through gritted teeth as she made to bite out another bitter comment and slap his hand away a third time. "I _need_ to do it…just let me."

Perhaps it was the look in his eyes, pleading deep in the usually cocky shimmering blue. Perhaps it was the determination in the tone of his southern accent or perhaps it was the way he moved his hand, covered in her blood, up to caress her cheek. The first time that he had ever made such a gesture to her and the first time that she had allowed it. Whichever it was, it made Ana's fury cool somewhat, made her cast her eyes down and nod in accordance.

"Alright then." Sawyer sighed in relief, shifting on his knees in front of her and lifting her chin upwards so that she looked at him squarely once more and was in a better position for him to begin cleaning up her bloody face.

"You pulled some pretty slick moves back there." he mused, eyes intent on his task and he was suddenly aware of why it was that Jack found it so much easier to question someone when he was tending to their wounds. He had an excuse not to look her in the eyes, had an excuse to keep from glancing up at her and seeing whatever emotions must be flashing across her features. He didn't want to read hate deep in her dark irises, and that surprised him somewhat. When had he started to care if Ana-Lucia Cortez liked him or not? When had he started to want her to?

"Told you she had it coming." Ana mumbled from behind his ministrations. She felt like she was six again, sitting on her kitchen table and having her Mama clean up her face after she got into a fight with the local bully when she had told him to stop pulling on a cat's tail. "Still got my nose busted to sht though, huh?" she tried to snort in amusement sending pain blaring from her sinuses and a spray of fresh blood droplets forth across Sawyer's blue T-shirt clad chest. She swore thickly in Spanish, reaching up a hand to tentatively touch her face, but it was Sawyer's turn to bat her hand out of the way, drawing a scowl down across her face.

"Believe me, Chica, there ain't nothin' wrong with takin' a blow from Freckles there." he soothed, brushing hair back from her face where it clung in the sticky, drying mess, so that he could continue his task unhindered. "She beat up on me a coupla times. Be thankful that she never nutted you one!"

Ana reached her hand up again and clasped his wrist, staying his attention and drawing his eyes to hers immediately.

"She hit you!" she demanded incredulously, but before Sawyer could reply with a satirical remark about how he was flattered by her concern for him, Ana began talking again, cutting him off dead. "Fcking hypocrite!" she snarled, making to stand and storm back down to the caves. "Btch! I'll kill her!" she roared, but Sawyer was faster than she was, had more energy left than she did and caught her by her belt, dragging her back down to the ground.

"I'm mighty touched that you wanna go do the whole _knight-in-shining-armour_ thing and defend my honour and all," he chuckled as she glared up at him. "But it happened a weeks ago, months even. All in the past, Princess. Time to let go."

"Get _over_ yourself, Sawyer!" Ana snapped back, eyes narrowed bitterly. "She told me to stay away from you because I hit you. She lectured me 'bout how wrong I was. Told me that you didn't need my sht and that I should back off if I couldn't show you some sympathy!"

For a long, extended moment Sawyer's jaw hung open in disbelief. He had always known that Kate was a liar, adept at manipulating anyone and everyone, especially Jack and himself, as long as it benefited her, but he had never considered that her little 'chat' with him that evening, that her revelation of Ana's apparent betrayal of his trust, was simply her playing god once more. He had known what Kate was like and yet he had believed her every word. Again! He had lapped it up.

"Sht…" he let out a long, hissing breath, sitting back on his heels, arms dropping into his lap.

"Now will you let me go knock her out properly!" Ana queried, only half jokingly and Sawyer considered for a long time letting her go and do it. Allowing her to go pound Kate some more and about going and watching her do it!

He didn't, however, and simply sighed, turning back to cleaning his face to help him resist the temptation.

"You didn't read my letter then." he stated rather than asked, eyes once again avoiding hers and Ana-Lucia laughed loud.

"Is the correct answer! Give the man a prize!" she grinned, more amusement filtering back into her face until Sawyer dabbed the split running across the bridge of her nose, where the broken bone had breached the skin, with iodine on the shirt he was using to clean her up. "Jesus _Christ_!" she yelled, trying to smack his hands away as she had before but he held her firmly, cupping the back of her head to keep her still. "Don't touch it!"

She struggled against him until fatigue made her limbs too heavy to move and he continued dabbing gently at her nose until the blood flow staunched and the swelling reduced slightly. Black bruises already ringed her eyes from Kate's blow but they weren't as bad as some of the shiners that he had received in his time. Her nose was the main concern. He knew she'd feel like she'd been hit by a freight train the next morning and he hoped that Jack would give up some of his precious asprin willingly, without him having to resort to the same violence that had consumed Ana-Lucia and Kate.

"All done, Fight-Club." he announced, tossing his stained shirt into the corner and using her chin once more to twist her head from one side to the other so that he could admire his handiwork. "No one will ever notice the difference."

Ana's lips quirked up, curling at the corners into a weary smile at that.

"I owe you one, Cowboy." she grinned and Sawyer chuckled, his hand moving to smooth back her hair once more.

He knew that he should say it. Knew that she deserved an apology from him, but she shook her head as if she had read his thoughts deep within his eyes.

"You don't have to say it." she stated and for once her gaze was free from anger or teasing or scorn. "You don't want my pity. I don't want yours."

He smile at her words mirroring his own from their earlier argument.

"Fair enough, Chica." he replied with a nod and for a long moment he considered leaning forwards, moving in to catch her lips with his and show her his apology in actions instead of words. He hovered there before her, hand curled around to cup the back of her head again, lips barely a breath away from hers and she allowed it. She didn't fight him away, didn't yell at him or call him some obscene name. She simply remained still, perhaps waiting to see how far he would chance to take it. Would he take the next leap and turn their curious relationship into something more?

Time seemed to freeze around them. The sounds of night outside melting away entirely as Sawyer paused on the brink of decision.

"My Papi," Ana said suddenly, murmuring, and he could almost feel her lips grazing his, a mere centimetre of air keeping them apart. "Left my Mama when I was seven. Three years later she died of an overdose. Something as stupid as headache tablets. I went to live with my Aunt, my Tia Lila while I grew up and when I finished school, I joined the police force."

Sawyer sat back slightly, trying to keep the disappointment from showing on his features.

"My Papi killed my Mama too. Maybe not as directly as yours did." she turned away, studying the pile of books in the far corner of his tent, on one in particular that had a battered brown and orange cover and had a worn, grubby white envelope for a bookmark. "I searched for him for years. I wanted to look the man who had abandoned us and sent my Mama to an early grave, in the eyes. I wanted to kill him!"

Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck slowly, giving a weary sigh. Did she think that she needed to tell him about her past just because he had told her about his unintentionally? He had thought that she'd read his letter, that she had already known about it before he told her.

"Why are you telling me this, Sugar?" he queried, confusion quirking his eyebrows downwards and her gaze snapped back to his, suddenly bright with emotions too numerous for him to name.

"Why were you in Sydney, Sawyer?" she demanded and before he could reply she continued, answering her own question before he had even drawn breath. "You were looking for him, weren't you? Sawyer, the real one?"

"How d'you figure-"

"Because I was too!" she spat finally and Sawyer looked at her in open-mouthed shock. "My Papi's name was Roberto Miguel Cortez. He changed it when he left my Mama for that rich blonde btch in L.A." she took a deep breath and Sawyer staggered to his feet, his head swimming with what he knew she was about to say and he headed for the entrance of his shelter. "He changed his name to Robert Sawyer!"

-oOo- 


	10. Chapter 10

Some more deep Ana and Sawyer thoughts and an appearance from Locke who is a bugger to write I might add! Damn him for being so hard to capture. And apologies if his part comes out stupid. Also, just to clear up a few things. Ana and Sawyer are NOT related in ANY way. Her dad is just the guy that Sawyer's mum had an affair with. Their parents are completely different, seperate people. Come on girls! I'm a rabid Sana shipper! Why on earth would I make them related? ;D Just wanted to clear that up, sorry if I confused people.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue!

**Chapter 10.**

Sawyer had disappeared from his tent the previous night and she had not stopped him. He'd been about to kiss her, she had felt his breath hot on her face. He'd been about to intensify their strange friendship and she had prevented him from doing so. Her lips had begun moving, speaking words that she should have kept to herself. Words that had perhaps ruined their connection where Kate had failed to do so earlier the day before and though Ana had taught the other woman never to meddle in their affair again, her own actions had made certain that Kate's will was done. She and Sawyer were over before they had even begun.

Ana had sat staring at the blue plastic sheets through the darkening night, which Sawyer had disappeared between, swiping at them, desperate for escape. And she hadn't gone after him. The absolute shock consuming his body, making his movements staggering and dizzy, had told her that he had reacted to her revelation badly. He needed to be alone. He needed space to breathe and process the terrible thing that she had told him and then he would come back to her, sat in his shelter, and deliver his ultimatum. His final decision which could only be either of two outcomes. He could accept it. Accept that her father had been the cause of his mother's murder, of his father's incensed insanity and suicide. Or he could tell her to get out. Of both his shelter and his life and that he never wanted the misfortune of seeing her again. From where Ana had sat, staring at the blue tarps shaded by night, the latter of her two theories was sounding the most likely.

She had needed to tell him though, before he had started something that their past's would never let them see to conclusion. Had she allowed him to kiss her, allowed events to transpire and had he found out at a later date of who she really was, his rejection of her, which she had begun to believe was imminent, would only hurt her all the more. She had never believe in the cock-and-bull proverb that 'it was better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all'. She had never believed that love with Sawyer would have been possible even during their sudden struck up camaraderie the week previous. But she saw the warning signs of her caring for him within herself too clearly to pass it off as mere friendship, or flat out hate. That was one saying that she did believe in, however. That there was a fine line to walk between love and hate and she was most certain that her revealed secret had tipped the balance to the less favourable of those states-of-mind.

And so she had stopped it. So that she could be more prepared for when he shunned her. So that she wouldn't be in so deep that her heart would break. Why then did it feel like it already was? Why did she feel despair striking deep, buried in her chest?

Too tired to think, too consumed with the pain of a thundering headache and a throbbing nose, to puzzle it out, Ana had reached across the establishment that the other survivors had made for Sawyer once he had fought off the infection in his arm. They had done so to get him out of the caves and make their lives easier. She reached for his copy of Watership Down and she removed his letter, the letter that had started it all, carefully laying it down beside her. She had known that there would be no way she would sleep that night, though exhaustion filled her entirely. She felt like curling up, going to sleep and never waking up but her eyes refused to close and her mind refused to shut down. She didn't want to have to deal with the mess closing in on her, like water rushing over her head, drowning her, smothering her. And so she read. She read from beginning to end until the pale light of dawn crept across the darkened sky. Every word. Every sentence. Every chapter.

-oOo-  
He had stumbled his way down to the beach once he had staggered out of his shelter and away from the woman who had brought his world crashing back down around his ears. He didn't stop walking until he strode across the icy-cold sand and broached the white crested waves of blackness, frigid sea water crashing up against him powerfully, trying to keep him on the island, trying to push him back where it wanted to keep him. It almost knocked him off his feet, but his sheer fury kept him upright.

The night air around him filled with furious crescendo of the salty waves lapping against the shore, the wind whipping past his face, bitter cold suddenly, clawing at him, stabbing at him, biting at him.

He was numb, though not because of the extreme weather or the water he was standing knee-deep in.

Emotions so long buried, so long carefully controlled, raged around inside him desperate for an outlet. He felt as if he might burst if he didn't do something. Like a champagne bottle being shaken and then popped open as he had done many times while wooing different women for their fortunes. Just like the real Sawyer. Just like Ana's father.

He wanted to cry so desperately. A grown man. An emotionless, self-centred conman wanted to cry like he hadn't in years. Like the child that had died inside him that night his daddy had pulled the trigger.

All because of one man. One single man who the woman in his tent had called 'Papi'. She had loved the man who had murdered his parents, at one point in her life at least, if not now. She had looked up to him like every child does their father. Like he had looked up to his own at one time, before his daddy had been driven mad by jealousy.

All because of one man. Robert Sawyer. Roberto Miguel Cortez.

The irrational, distraught part of his mind wanted to hate Ana-Lucia for carrying such a man's blood in her veins. He wanted so desperately to find someone to place the blame upon, someone real and there before him, not the ghost that he had been tearing around the world after for what seemed his entire life. And there she was. The daughter of the real Sawyer, placed before him on a goddamn silver platter. An ends to a means. Finally, after eternity, he had come across someone to focus all of his pent up anguish and anger upon.

And yet, in the back of his mind his conscience stung with guilt for even thinking such terrible thoughts. They had been drawn together, like moths to the dancing flame and perhaps it had all simply been subconscious. Perhaps they had inadvertently sensed in each other the same ruined childhood or the same wasted life searching for the man that had ruined them both. He did not know. He didn't know anything anymore, standing, waist deep now, in the crashing sea. Freezing. Icy. Cold.

What could he do? What should he do?

"If you're looking for answers," the soft yet surprisingly hard and powerful voice of the bald-headed hunter wove out to him in the night, rising clearly above the tumult of roaring waves and wind and his own drumming heart.

Sawyer turned, fixing John Locke with an irate stare. He wasn't in the mood, nor the right frame of mind, to deal with that man's wacko-island bullsht.

"You won't find them out there." Locke shrugged as if he were merely commenting upon the weather to the tall, blonde man soaked to the bone. 

"You wanna mind your own business, Elmer!" Sawyer growled through teeth clenched so tightly that his voice came out distorted.

"Elmer…" Locke mused, a small, knowing grin spreading across his thin lips. "Yes, I see. A nickname derived from Elmer Fudd. The little guy who always use to hunt Bugs Bunny on those Saturday morning cartoons. Very good. I'm bald and a hunter too. Hilarious."

A laugh filtered out from his smiling mouth and Sawyer turned his back, scowling more intently out into the night, wishing that the older man would just take the hint and leave him be. Locke, however, was either very persistent or very stupid, ignoring Sawyer's hostility and continuing to speak to the back of his head.

"Did you know that Canadian Geese migrate every winter to escape the cold? They fly south."

Sawyer shook his head, though the action was out of incredulity and not an answer to Locke's question and the man continued to speak, seeming unperturbed by Sawyer's fury and lack of interest.

"Some birds are born with the migration instinct, the swallow for instance. They know exactly which routes to take, where to land and rest, where to get their food and even where their destination is without ever having seen it or been there. It's a miracle. Amazing." he paused to take a brief draft from his water bottle, clearing his throat before continuing, his hands moving to illustrate his words and Sawyer, turning to glance over his shoulder again, found himself unable to take his stare off him.

"But geese?" Locke shook his head, eyes taking on a glassy, glazed-over sheen to them as if he were somewhere else entirely, immersed in his lecture. "They need to be taken on that very first migration in order for them to remember where to go and what to do so that the following year, when they have mates and goslings of their own, they can continue the cycle. They can teach their young the way that their parents taught them and so on for generations and generations…For years!"

The older man's blue eyes gleamed with an eerie light in the moonshine, flashing through the darkness as he was enthused by what he was talking about, hands gesturing wildly around him until he suddenly focused upon Sawyer once more.

"I'm assumin' this little lesson's got a reason behind it." Sawyer growled, turning back towards the beach fully, his back taking the brunt of the waves crashing into him, slowly shifting him closer to the strange man so intent on talking to him.

Locke only nodded, sniffing excitedly as he continued and Sawyer neared him.

"Say the parents get killed, for argument sake, by a poacher's gun, or a predator's jaws or natural causes and the goslings are raised by hand. They will never know the way to go. They will break the link, the vicious cycle." he beamed up at Sawyer who stepped finally onto the dry, firm sand, icy rivulets of water running down his body and legs leaving puddles behind him where he had walked. Locke's eyes connected with his completely and he hefted his backpack a little higher into his back, offering a slap for Sawyer's soaking shoulder and making a clapping sound that resonated across the vast expanse of dark beach. "Children do not always follow the same path as their parents. Aren't always cut from the same cloth." he turned abruptly on his heel, beginning to walk away, back to the tree line. "Sometimes we're given a chance to right past wrongs. To stop the vicious circle from passing down to the next generation like with hand-reared goslings. The wrongs of the father can be absolved by the rights of the child."

And with that final comment, called over his shoulder with a knowing quirk to his thin lips, the enigmatic man disappeared into the night. Mingling with the deep shadows and moving as silently as one, leaving Sawyer standing alone and beginning to shiver. 

-oOo- 


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm just borrowing it all! **  
**

**Chapter 11.**

She stuffed her belongings into her bag with so much force that the material almost tore apart in protest. She didn't care that her clothes would wrinkle and crease. Nor that only days prior she had cobbled together her shelter next to the caves, only to be tearing it back down at that moment. She didn't care. It hadn't taken her too much effort to throw it together to protect her from the pouring rain and cool nights. Besides, she would rebuild it, make a better one, stronger, built to last…at the beach.

She had never been one to stay where she wasn't wanted and it wasn't only her dislike of Kate and her irritation at Jack's unwavering support of the other woman that made her feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Sawyer had not returned from his previous night's soul-searching. She was left in limbo. A state of weightlessness. She knew neither whether he hated her or accepted her and the longer his absence went on, the less reassured she felt.

She was sick of waiting on the line. Waiting for him to collect himself and decide where she stood in his view. Whether she held sway in his life or whether that place had only been a mirage, a teasing fantasy that would never have worked out.

She waited for no man, not even Sawyer. If he couldn't make up his mind, she would remove herself from the equation. Move on and protect herself from being hurt when their paths finally did cross again. She would make up his mind for him.

She paused in her movements for a second, fingertips flying up to brush over her lips once more as they had been all morning.

He had been about to kiss her. That single thought consumed her mind, flashing around and around tauntingly, showing Ana what could have possibly been if she had just kept her mouth firmly shut. But she hadn't. Hadn't wanted to run the risk of getting found out days, weeks, months even, down the line. If she was perfectly truthful, she had wanted to safeguard herself. She'd been hurt too many times, by too many people.

"Idiota!" she hissed to herself beneath her breath, stooping to retrieve more of her scant few belongings from the ground and rolling them up into her blanket. "Stupido!" she cursed herself. It was all because of her inability to 'go with the flow' as one of her colleagues had put it so eloquently what seemed a lifetime ago…before she'd lost her job. Before she's wasted her life and ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere.

The deep throated chuckle from behind her took her by surprise, making her start and spin about, dropping her things back to the ground forgotten.

"Butter-fingers." Sawyer grinned, though it was neither overly happy or as teasing as usual. Sorrow and pain glimmered behind his blue eyes, just lurking behind his smile. A similar pain to her own, that grew and thrived inside her. She knew that his childhood had been destroyed as hers had. By the very same man. He haunted them both. He had for years as he was trying to do at the moment. His memory, his mere mention had torn them apart spectacularly before they had even come together.

Sawyer considered her cautiously, watching her closely and trying to gauge her reaction to his sudden, unexplained reappearance and he had the good grace to look nervous, shuffling and dragging a hand back through his lengthening blonde hair.

"Sorry 'bout leavin' you so long on your own, Sugar." he said suddenly, splitting open the stunned silence like lightening through a thunderous sky. His words so similar, reminiscent of those he had said to her that first day that they had embarked upon their friendship. "Had some thinkin' to do after you dropped that little bombshell on me." His eyes left her face briefly as remembrance, perhaps of where he had been and what he had done the previous night, flashed across his face and he coughed. Shuffled awkwardly again as he took in her half packed bag and semi-dismantled tent. "You goin' somewhere?" he questioned, stepping further inside suddenly and reducing the space dramatically, something akin to alarm tainting the sapphire of his gaze as it returned to meet with hers. "Little holiday maybe?"

Ana stepped backwards from him, brushing stray curls behind her ear before thrusting her hands into the back pockets of her jean-shorts. Her shoulders bobbed up and down in a fleeting shrug, deep brown eyes seeking out the well-trodden dirt floor at their feet.

"Thought it might be best for me to move down to the beach for a while. Y'know…keep outta everyone's way. I don't think I could look at Kate again without swinging for her." she hesitated, brushing at her dark hair coming loose once more and Sawyer chuckled.

"Sure, Chica. Instead of locking horns with Freckles and Jackie-Boy, makes perfect sense to go and have a try at Mohammed and Sticks, the girl you shot in the chest!" amusement thrummed in his deep tone once more, but Ana failed to see the humour. She was still very much plagued by her almost killing of the tall blonde girl, Shannon, and though she had swallowed her pride and asked their forgiveness, the pair still considered her warily whenever they chanced upon her.

"_Yeah_," Ana spat sarcastically. "Lets see if I can_ ruin _anyone else's lives, huh!" her eyes narrowed, though she still avoided his gaze, scuffing the toe of her boot into the soil.

"That's not what I meant, Sugar, and you know it." he replied calmingly but before he could reply, Ana turned on her heel, retrieving her bag from the floor and resuming her furious packing of her belongings deep inside it.

"What do you want, Sawyer?" she snapped, crouched down and again he sighed, running a hand across his stubbly jaw, steeling himself for what he was about to say.

"Everyone keeps on tellin' me that we all get to start a new life on this island. Crocodile Dundee, Chief Rabbit and Freckles, Captain Falafel and Sticks…" he paused and Ana stilled her motions listening to him intently, though remaining on her knees, back turned to him. "I was hopin' we could forget about all that sht in our pasts. My daddy. Your daddy. _Everything_." he halted his speech again and she heard him crouching down behind her, his nearness, the heat radiating from his body making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and stand on end. "I was hopin' we could…pick up where we left off last night. See if that 'new life' crap that they keep goin' on about is true."

She remained so quiet, so still that he thought she hadn't heard him, or was trying to ignore him. He had just moved to reach out his hand, to place it upon her shoulder and spin her around to face him when she did so of her own accord, shuffling on her knees in a way that would have been amusing had the situation not hung on what she was about to say next.

She looked at him straight, square in his face for the first time since he had entered her shelter and though he was certain that hope shone bright in his eyes, he could read nothing in hers. Not a glimpse of what she was thinking, what ran through her thoughts at his proposition.

"I dunno." she replied at length, voice smooth and slow and deep, and Sawyer nodded, pretending that that had been the answer he had expected all along, fighting the urge to kick himself for not returning to her sooner. "But we could try it."

He looked stunned at her response, as if he had not truly believed what she had just said and Ana laughed, tossing her ebony haired head and sitting back onto her heels. The sound of her amusement, it seemed, drew him out of his stupor and he replaced his blatant shock with a cocky, lop-sided smirk, bravado returning even as relief flowed through him like a current of electricity.

"Go on then, Trailer-Park." Ana demanded finally once she realised that Sawyer was too stunned to talk…or to act upon his initiative. Her smirk matched his, wide and delighted and it only grew when he quirked an eyebrow questioningly. "Thought you said you wanted to pick up where we left off? You gonna finish what you started? You got the balls to?"

Sawyer's confusion melted immediately, replaced by a deep laugh and teasing in his dancing stare.

"Hell, Girl-Fight. Didn't know you were _that_ desperate." he snorted at her rolled eyes and muttered Spanish retort that he had no clue of the meaning. "Sure you want to get into this here? _Now_?" He sent his eyes scanning around her shelter, as if he thought someone was liable to leap in with a camera pointed their way at any second and Ana's smile turned wicked as she fisted her hands into the front of his crumpled blue T-shirt, drawing him closer to her with a sharp tug.

"Ain't no time like the present." she gave a blasé shrug but the remainder of her mocking remark was cut off.

Sawyer's lips descended upon hers, capturing them in a searing kiss. The kiss that they had been waiting for, albeit subconsciously for the most part, since the very first moment that they had clapped eyes upon each other, what seemed so long ago. It was very different than Ana had imagined. Hard and rough, while in the same instant smooth and hot. Unlike any kiss that she had received in her entire life and completely the opposite of the kiss that he had almost given to her last night. She didn't care, however. Her mind fell away from itself and her thoughts became insignificant, incoherent, when his tongue curled itself against the seam of her lips, coaxing them apart until all she could think about was him, mouth all fiery heat and hardness. It made her tingle all over. Made her body feel like it was trying to turn itself inside-out through her navel. It felt so good that her teeth began to ache.

Sawyer's hands fisted into the back of her vest-top, resting at the base of her spine and pulling her towards him so that they came together. Closer than they had ever been before, bodies pressed flush against each other until Ana drew back like lightening, like she'd been stung, ripping her mouth from his with a hiss of pain, half swallowed by his own lips.

He couldn't breathe enough to string together a query, instead simply raising his eyebrows in enquiry and Ana, similarly breathless, tugged up the hem of her shirt enough to reveal the foot-sized bruise, blossoming purple and blue and dark, angry crimson, emblazoning her ribs. It was where Kate had kicked her and Sawyer nodded in understanding, his pupils still large and dark with a desire that was also pooling in the pit of her own stomach.

"Lets…go get…you…to the, Doc."

-oOo-

Jack glanced up from his task at the sound of voices and footsteps echoing through the caves and into his own, designated for a makeshift hospital.

Ana-Lucia appeared around the corner, nose and face a mass of angry red, of purple and blue, swollen from the blow that had been lain upon her in yesterdays brawl. Two black eyes ringing her sockets and yet she smiled, wider than he had seen her smile since the tail-end survivors had merged together with the rest of them. Happier than she had ever been and a small part of him was regretful that he had not been the one to bring her such cheer.

She laughed, oblivious to his watch, though the man beside her, with his arm hooked around her neck loosely, was not as unaware. The man that had obviously put the smile upon her lips in such ways that Jack preferred not to contemplate.

Sawyer's blue eyes flashed at him, half warningly as they swaggered their way in tandem into the medical cave and towards Jack where he stood, hands paused halfway through rummaging in his suitcase.

"Mornin' Doc." he announced, voice loud and overly joyful. "Kept my promise, see?"

Jack didn't reply, instead turning to Ana and motioning for her to take a seat atop the same stone ledge that Sawyer had sat upon to have his arm inspected.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her immediately, touching the bridge of her nose once she had settled and she winced, jerking back from his cold fingers slightly, dark eyes flickering to Sawyer who stood silent, leaning against the cave wall, looking on intently. He offered no mocking, taunting, annoying remarks and Jack was puzzled by that.

"Like I've been hit by a truck." Ana replied, good humoured sarcasm tinting her words and Jack felt himself smiling, trying to ignore Sawyer's implicit scrutiny.

"I'm not surprised." he chuckled before continuing to examine her face. "It feels like it was a clean break. Your bones are still straight." he murmured. "I won't have to realign them and they should heal pretty much the same way they were. No knocks or bumps, hopefully."

"That's good." she responded lightly and he could sense from her voice, from the look in her eyes that her thoughts were else where. She no longer focused upon him when she was talking to him like she use to. Instead the dark depths of her irises travelled once again to the blonde man smirking as he glared into the back of Jack's head.

Jack cleared his throat, fighting back irritation at both Ana's distant attitude and Sawyer's hawk-like stare, and reached for a roll of surgical tape, biting off a strip and laying it carefully across the bridge of Ana's nose bone. She grimaced again at the pain, hissing slightly but she remained still until he had smoothed the edges down fully and pulled away.

"So…are you going to tell me what yesterday was all about? Why I'm treating you for a broken nose and bruised ribs?" he queried as he motioned for Ana to remove her shirt and she did so, lifting it over her head unabashedly, sitting in merely her black bra and she frowned, gritting her teeth.

"Maybe you should ask your girlfriend." she replied, looking up, her eyes meeting his and clashing, telling him silently that she wasn't going to talk to him about it any time soon and that she wanted him to hurry up and check her over. Apparently she had a better place to be, with more…pressing matters.

"Does that hurt?" Jack sighed in defeat, changed the subject abruptly and pressing against her ribs on either side before moving, sliding his cool hands gently over the warm, bruised skin in the centre of her torso when she replied with a negative. "Well, your ribs aren't broken. That's something at least."

"Good. Is that it?" she demanded, raising her chin and catching his gaze once more and Jack could only nod.

Sawyer had been right. He had helped Kate make her decision weeks ago and Sawyer, true to his word, had obviously aided Ana making hers. That much was blatantly obvious from the way her attention wavered, turning instead to the southerner. And though Jack felt a deep regret for what could have been between him and Ana-Lucia had Sawyer and Kate not been in the picture, she was evidently happy with her choice and he knew that he should respect that, even if it pained him to do so. Even if he knew that it would most likely end in tears for her, knowing Sawyer.

Ana tugged her shirt back over her head and hopped off the stone ledge, crossing the cave floor to the man waiting for her in a matter of heartbeats, with only a hastily muttered 'thanks' tossed back over her shoulder.

And Jack watched them go. Sawyer looping his arm back across her shoulders as she curled her own about his waist and they left, striding away without a second glance for the doctor that they left in their wake, emotions too numerous and conflicting to name careering around his chest.

He really needed to sort his head out. To understand his own feelings and what it was exactly that he wanted.

He needed to talk to Kate.

-oOo- 


	12. Chapter 12

The penultimate chapter I'm afraid. Just one more to go and I'll be updating that tomorrow for sure. I really got into Jate by the end of writing this. I hope it's okay though. I'm still unsure of their characters though I must say, Jack is a lot easier to write than Kate is. Darn her!

**Chapter 12.**

She watched them talking and laughing and flirting together from where she stood, leaning forwards and against the thick trunk of the tree that partially obscured her from view, forehead resting onto the rough bark, making her skin itch. Though it was not as if they would have seen her anyway. They were obviously too busy with taunting each other, smiles wide as they knocked shoulders while they worked together to continue dismantling Ana's shelter before moving over to work on Sawyer's.

Part of her wanted nothing more than for the other woman to glance up at that moment in time and lock her gaze onto her, just so that she would have the excuse to go another round with Ana-Lucia and take all of her frustration, her anger and resentment out on the Latino woman.

Kate winced, however, remembering the feel of Ana's fists upon her. Colliding with her face. Splitting open her eyebrow. Sending her to the ground. She touched the split marring her usually straight, sleek brow tentatively, where Jack had cleaned it and patched it up with thin strips of surgical tape the night before and a sharp, fiery pain lanced through her skull.

But Ana-Lucia did not look up and spot her. She didn't seem to realise, to be aware that there were any other people within a three hundred mile radius, except for the blonde man beside her, trying his best to dismantle his own tent without letting on that his injured arm was still troubling him.

"Looks like they're moving out." Jack's voice came from behind her, startling her out of her contemplations and making her spin to face him. Guilt painted her cheeks flaming red, and shame at having been caught. "Guess they're heading down to the beach."

"I wouldn't know." Kate responded, trying to keep her voice even, to keep it from betraying the true emotions that swam deep in her blood. Coursed through her veins.

She made to sweep past him, to escape the sudden discomfort that clawed at them where they stood, like the talons of a predator striking at it's pray, but Jack's hand struck out, encircling her wrist and halting her movements. Bringing them back, face-to-face.

His eyes were darker than Sawyer's were. Not blue. Not green or brown but somewhere between the three. Something as insubstantial as the dark of the night sky or deep water. Deep enough to be lost in and she wanted nothing more than to allow herself the luxury of losing herself right then. To erase the pain that she felt and the remorse for what she had done and said the prior evening. She had betrayed Sawyer's trust one time too many and while Ana-Lucia's assault had hurt her physically, the loss of Sawyer's attention and the camaraderie between them was a greater blow for her to bare.

"Let go, Jack." she sighed, allowing weariness to creep into her tone and though she would never before have allowed herself to show such weakness to anyone, let alone the man stood before her, right then she didn't care.

"I know it's hard, Kate." he began, his grip on her wrist loosening slightly but before she could break away and escape from him, from whatever lecture he was about to give her, his other hand, large and warm, came down to cup her shoulder, pinning her to the spot. A comforting and yet restricting weight and she had to fight the urge to lean forwards into his embrace. "But you have to respect the choice that he's made. That they've both made…Just like I have to." he lowered his eyes from hers and Kate stared at him in shock, mouth slightly agape.

"You mean to tell me-!" she started, eyebrows drawn together into a confused, irate frown and Jack merely nodded his head.

"Ana-Lucia and I had a connection, just like you and Sawyer did." he admitted and Kate pulled away from him suddenly, green eyes flashing dangerously. Warning him to explain himself or stop while he was ahead. 

"You 'had a connection'? What? It just sprung up over the past few days that we've known her! Attraction doesn't grow on trees, Jack! You can't catch it like the common cold!"

Jack smiled at that. He would have laughed at her use of words and imagery if she hadn't been so furious at that particular moment. Instead he swallowed it down, shrugging his powerful shoulders and his eyes flicker back up to meet hers.

"We met before the plane crashed. Before we boarded. In the airport." he replied, allowing his gaze to continue, flowing over from Kate's shoulder to land upon the Hispanic woman that they were currently discussing. "Who knows what could have happened if the plane hadn't crashed or if I'd traded seats with her like she'd asked me to or if you had gotten on that raft instead of Sawyer." he paused to swallow again, running a hand back over his closely cropped hair and swinging his stare back onto Kate fully, focusing upon her intent, curious glare. "If…"

She folded her arms, crossing them over her chest defensively and considered his statement with a wariness that he had come to expect from her.

"If?" she repeated. "If you're going to try and tell me that this has all happened because of fate or destiny or some other bullsh-"

"Not at all." Jack countered, interrupting her with a raised hand, begging silently for her to hear him out. "No fate. Not destiny. They're Locke's forte." he smiled once more and wider still when Kate's lips twitched up at the corners with barely concealed amusement, so very near, edging on a smirk. "Choices, Kate. It's all to do with choices that we've made along the way and now you have another one to make. So do I."

Kate considered him curiously. Where was he heading with his little pep-talk? What did he hope to gain from it? What did he think he was going to accomplish? Her mid only drew blanks and seeing the uncomprehending light flash into her eyes, Jack continued speaking earnestly.

"You have to decide whether you are going to go all out and go after him. Erase those choices that you've made and that have led you and him down separate paths or…are you going to leave him to his happiness? Are you going to live with those decisions that you made, Kate, you made, and see where this new road is going to take you?" he paused finally, spreading his arms wide, inviting her to consider him fully and suddenly she knew the hidden meaning behind his words. As if she had been stuck by lightening she knew why he was stood before her, instead of going after Ana-Lucia, instead of striving for the other woman's affection and renewing their bond.

He had made his choice. He had chosen her, Kate, and now he was waiting to see if she would choose him in return.

Her eyebrows raised in realisation as she opened her mouth to speak, his name coming out in a single breath, a mixture of shock and awe and emotion.

"What'll it be, Kate?"

She stood still for a long moment, simply studying him. The concern deep in the lines of his face. Worry laced with exhaustion and regret. Regret for what he could have had with Ana-Lucia…And yet, he was stood before her! He had chosen her, even if the torch that he carried for the Latino woman had not entirely gone out. Even though he knew that the fire that burned within Kate herself for Sawyer was stronger again. He had faith. Faith in himself and that the choices that he had made along the way were the right ones. He had faith in her that she would ultimately make the decision that was right for her, no matter the repercussions on him and it was that, that unwavering support whichever way she decided to go. After Sawyer or to stay with him. It was his support that made her swallow hard at the lump of emotion sticking in her throat. That made her take his face in her hands and close the distance between them both physically and emotionally.

Kate made her selection. Kate made her choice and though she knew that she had a long way to go before she could let Sawyer completely out of her heart, she also knew that she wouldn't have to do so alone. Jack would be there for her, her guiding light, and she would strive her hardest to be there for him.

"This is the road I choose." she whispered, squeezing her eyes together so hard that dots of brilliant, blinding brightness danced there in her dark mind. "I want to see where it takes me."

She didn't even need to open her eyes for her lips to seek out Jack's as she wound her arms about his neck and crushed herself to him. Her mind was a blur of joy and sadness. Her eyes stung with the first hints of tears and yet her heart fluttered like a bird, caged, waiting to be set free. She poured herself into Jack's kiss. Her kiss. Let the feel of him blind her, even if it was only briefly, to the hurt that she felt, knowing that to a certain extent he felt it himself and when she finally pulled away, breathless, she didn't run. Didn't bolt like her instincts told her to, and as if Jack had read that fleeting thought in her jade eyes, he reached out a hand to take hers, clasping it tightly. 

"Don't worry," she breathed finally, smiling brightly and squeezing his hand back reassuringly. "I'm done running."

And for the first time, deep down in her heart, she meant it.

-oOo- 


	13. Chapter 13

Alas, the end is here. But I hope you like this and I hope that I've done the end enough justice. I want to thank you all so much for all of your time spent reading this and commenting upon it. I'm going to miss writing this story immensely. I'm having a little break before I start on the sequel. I'm not sure whether to have it set on the island or post rescue. There are so many ways to go with both of those ideas.

**Chapter 13.**

She took a step back to admire their handiwork, cocking her head to one side first and then the other to get a different perspective on the shelter that they had spent all day creating.

So what if it looked like a mass of blue plastic strung up between three palm trees? So what if the bamboo walls that they had lashed together listed to one side slightly, as if they were caught in high winds? So what if they had built it out, away from the close-knit community residing at the beach?

The tarps that they had used for the roof were waterproof, they'd be dry at least. The walls were sturdy and strong, if a little lopsided, and above all else, offered them a degree of privacy that no one had had since their plane had crashed down from it's flight path. The same went for the place that they had chosen to build it. The other survivors were still well within sight. Still within shouting distance if the need ever arose to get their attention quickly and yet they were far enough away to avoid the curious stares and whispers. The gossip that was no doubt taking the island by storm, like wildfire.

_'That jerk, Sawyer has shacked up with the bitch who almost killed Shannon. Don't they deserve each other? Don't they make the perfect, nasty couple?'_

Claire had come to welcome them with a warm smile, though she was still slightly unnerved by the fight that she had been witness to in the caves the past evening. Part of the young mother was still loyal to Kate and Shannon, the women that she had survived the crash with and yet her nature was to be friendly to everyone. She didn't stop to talk for long. Just enough to give Ana and Sawyer a break from the hostile glares and snooping eyes that watched their every move.

Shannon and Sayid had watched them pass warily from their own combined shelter, the Iraqi man, perhaps subconsciously and perhaps not, moving to stand in front of the still recovering blonde woman. As if he thought that Ana-Lucia might whip out a gun and try to shoot her again. As if she had done what she had on purpose.

The other survivors had given them a wide birth as they strolled past, dragging all of Sawyer's collected suitcases and her bags stacked up on one of the blue sheets. A makeshift sled that made the whole 'moving' process immensely easier. Eyes had watched them while people whispered together behind hands and tree trunks. Even, if not more so, after Ana had turned her scowl upon them and told them brusquely that they should _'take a picture. It would last longer'_.

Sawyer stopped beside her, drinking deeply from his water bottle before passing it on to her and using his removed shirt to wipe sweat from his face. The removed shirt that she'd had to help him out of when the pain in his shoulder had made him incapable of doing so himself. She suspected, however, that he had played it up in order to enlist her aid and had their shelter been built at that moment, had they been hidden by it's walls and ceiling instead of staring at what looked remarkably like a pile of junk out in the open, his shirt wouldn't have been the only article of clothing removed.

"Done good there, Girl-Fight." he stated, also considering their new shelter, much larger and more stable than either of their previous ones, their belongings finally all tucked away in their places inside.

"Ain't bad, I guess." she agreed, scrutinizing it for a moment longer before turning away and glancing out to the sea where the sun sank low, skimming the horizon and night seeped down, darkening the sky. "Better get that fire going, huh? It'll be dark soon."

Sawyer shrugged, sinking down beside the fire pit that they had dug earlier, ringed by rocks to contain it, as she reached for one of the lit torches that skirted the establishment. She doused the kindling ready placed with the flickering flames, sparking the dried, brittle wood to life before returning to fuss over replacing the torch and coaxing the fire brighter for a long drawn out second. Until there was nothing more for her to do but sit down beside him and stare into it's light, warmth coating her face while leaving her curled back open to the coolness of coming night.

It was awkward at first. She and Sawyer had been busy all day with dismantling their tents, moving and then rebuilding. They hadn't talked yet about the kiss nor Sawyer's plea to forget their pasts and for the first time, Ana felt slightly nervous, a deep buzzing in the pit of her stomach.

They had bantered and argued and taunted each other since that morning and she was comfortable with that. She enjoyed the verbal sparring, she enjoyed the flirtation and the lack of seriousness that their arguments held. And yet she knew that they had to talk sincerely and properly if they were going to get this…thing, whatever it was, to work.

"I've been thinkin'." she spoke suddenly, clearing her throat and daring to look at him, sideways.

Sawyer snorted in response to her comment, his eyes flashing to hers.

"Wow, did it _hurt_ you, Chica?" he chuckled at his own words and Ana swung out with her hand, clipping him across the back of his head, irately making him hiss and scowl before questioning her about 'why' and 'what' she had been thinking about.

She didn't respond immediately, instead shifting slightly to one side and reaching deep into her pocket, pulling out a wad of paper, covered with scrawled names and addresses and phone numbers, handing them over to Sawyer, placing them in his lap.

"What? You couldn't be _normal_ and get a little black book like everyone else, Sweetcheeks?" he chuckled, thumbing through them all, squinting blue eyes scanning over them in the failing light.

Ana drew one knee up, resting her elbow upon it so that she could, in turn, support her head in her hand as she turned to watch him closely.

"Ain't the numbers and addresses of all the boyfriends I've had, Bucko." she growled in reply, scowling at him, though somewhat half-hearted in her ire. She paused for an extended heartbeat, until he had sifted the entire way through and returned to the very first.

"Well, if they ain't the contact details of men I'm gonna have to hunt down and castrate when we find ourselves a way of 'Mystery Island', you gonna shed a little light on these for me, Chica?" he queried, quirking an eyebrow and glancing up at her as he gave the pile a shake, making the papers rustle.

"They're his." she responded, quietly, continuing before Sawyer had the opportunity to ask 'who' exactly she was talking about. "All the addresses and numbers that I've been given trying to track him down."

Sawyer's jaw clenched, teeth working as they ground together and he rifled through them again, stopping on one in particular and plucking it out. He reached for his makeshift glasses, sliding them across his eyes so that he didn't have to strain to read and give himself an unnecessary headache.

"L.A…" he muttered, almost to himself Ana thought at first, until his sapphire gaze, magnified by his lopsided spectacles, flashed up at her. He knew who she had been talking about suddenly. "You were going to L.A…To find him?" he demanded, voice raising in volume with the notion that he had traversed the world in search of a man that had been living in Los Angeles the whole time. "He's been in L.A? All these years?"

Ana shook her head as much as she could and shrugged.

"I don't know. I dunno if it was just another wild goose-chase. Would I get another sob story from some heartbroken teenager young enough to be my _daughter_ and another address in some other country?" she shrugged a second time, answering her own questions once more. "I don't know. I'll never know now and to be straight with you, I don't really _care_ anymore."

Sawyer watched her closely, studied her dark eyes as she reached her hand out to take back her stack of information. And he believed her. He knew that she spoke the truth when she told him that she no longer cared about finding and paying back her father for screwing up her life. She didn't give a sht and she'd possibly stopped caring a long time ago, while she'd been chasing the ghost of Robert Sawyer across the globe, like he had himself. It was all that either of them had known and perhaps that was why they had not given up sooner and salvaged what remain of their messed up lives.

Ana's hand brushed against his as she received back the papers. Fingers smooth and warm against his own skin which previously had felt so cold and callused.

She smile sadly, glancing down at them once more, running a bitten down thumbnail across the creased surface much as he did when reading his letter.

Everyone, even Ana-Lucia, had their burdens, their own demons to face before they could truly move on and as she began speaking again, he watched the struggle to let go, to release herself from her never-ending quest, flare across her features, mingling with firelight. 

"These are my past," she began. "These addressed and numbers and names are part of that past you said you wanted to forget." her fist clenched suddenly, screwing them into a tight ball, knuckles turning white with the sheer force that she used to compact them. "And I said I wanted to give it a shot." she moved her fist, suddenly a blur of motion as she tossed the scrunched up papers into the dancing flames, drawing a hiss and a crackle of protest at being disturbed.

White paper and black and blue writing charred and curled against the heat. Turned brown and black and then slate grey as the fire consumed it hungrily, turning it to ash. And Ana seemed to relax, to release a sigh of relief as her shoulders bobbed up and down in a great expulsion of tension that had been coiling inside of her for years. Since her daddy had left when she was a child. Her face was clear of regret of worry or anger and she laughed, deep in her throat, leaning back onto her elbows, semi-recumbent, as she settled her gaze onto him.

"All my life I've been waiting to kill my Papi." she beamed, dark eyes reflecting the dancing fire. "And I just have. I killed Roberto Miguel Cortez and it feels great!"

Sawyer couldn't help but chuckle along with her as she let her head fall back onto her shoulders and stared up into the dark night sky. His hand curled into his own pocket, drawing out the burden that he had carried, similar to Ana, for as long as he could remember.

His fingers tugged it from it's envelope. Creased and time stained and he read over it, even though every word was burned into his memory, would stay with him. He knew it by heart and by heartache and even as he took Ana's lead and crunched it up, tossing it into the flames beside hers, he knew that for him letting go would take a little bit longer.

They watched together as the second ball of off white paper fizzled and crackled and suffered the same fate as the first, swallowed by the ravenous, white-hot blaze. They stared until the night around them painted everything black, in hues of shadow. Until Ana-Lucia shifted, rolling onto her side to face him instead of their fiery past.

"So." she stated, amusement curling the corner of her lips up into a definite smirk, any nostalgia or sadness long since erased.

"So." Sawyer countered, lying beside her on his back, folded arms pillowing his head as he sent his gaze up into the sky. "So what?"

Ana rolled her eyes and he sensed it, even if he didn't see, snorting to himself.

"So…are you gonna finish what you started this morning or what?" she demanded, lacing feigned ire and impatience through her words as she propped her head up onto one elbow. Her words, reminiscent of her jovial goading of him when they had knelt together in her tent, caused desire to stir once more in the pit of his stomach and he smiled wide, turning his dimpled face towards her.

"Ain't no time like the present, I guess."

**_The End_**  
-oOo- 


End file.
